Los Angeles

THE JOY OF TEARS Having experienced 307 U.S. National Parks, I am keenly aware of the musical sounds of nature, such as the haunting accelerando of wind through pine needles, the drone of a bee, or the ever-changing sounds of water, as with bubbling staccato over stones, or a cascading scherzo down a ravine. Tan…

SANTASTIC! Sometimes in life, it’s the last Christmas present we open that makes up for all the lousy ones we unwrapped before. In what is truly the most dismal season of holiday-themed shows, I happened upon one on Christmas Eve which, unbeknownst to me, has been an annual event for 13 years. Santasia: A Holiday…

‘HANDEL’ED WELL, BUT NOT THE SECOND COMING Los Angeles Master Chorale returned to Walt Disney Concert Hall to conclude its holiday programming with the perennial holiday classical chestnut, Handel’s Messiah. The choir was impeccable under Music Director Grant Gershon’s athletic conducting, and the use of a chamber orchestra brought authenticity to the iconoclastic 1741 English-language…

LAMC BRINGS PEACE AND JOY TO DISNEY HALL Los Angeles Master Chorale’s (LAMC) Christmastime Baroque concert, Rejoice!, had as its headliner Bach’s Magnificat, but less-than-stellar soloists for this work – one which is better-suited for an intimate venue – made the piece more fascinating as a musical study than triumphant as a performance. Still, under…

LET’S BE FRANK The dictionary has two main definitions for the word “bash”: One is “a thoroughly enjoyable, lively party,” which is undoubtedly what the producers of Christmas My Way – A Sinatra Holiday Bash had in mind. However, the second definition of “bash” is far more apt for the misguided offering currently on at…

AN IMPERSONAL  CHRISTMAS CAROL What has become of Christmas since Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published in 1843? In spite of the fact that technology has afforded us numerous opportunities including the ability to connect with one another more immediately than ever, improving our quality of life, and allowing us to select the exact product we…

THE OLD COLLEGE TRY Brown University/Trinity Rep’s MFA program has a solid reputation as theatre arts training for bright, enthusiastic, well-rounded theatre artists.   The challenge for each graduating Brown/Trinity class is to figure out how to transition from the safe isolation of training in provincial Providence, Rhode Island to full-on careers in the far-reaching landscape…

ALEXANDER THE GREAT…CHARMER, THAT IS When I first heard Cortés Alexander sing in 1992, he wasn’t alone. He was part of a group named The Tonics, and they performed a jazzy rendition of “Good Thing Going” for a PBS special, Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (which was accompanied by a then-unknown Jason Robert Brown…

STUCK IN THE DESERT Don’t the powers that be at Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum understand that casting is roughly 80% of a play’s success? Don’t they understand that any play, including Shakespeare, will suffer if an ensemble is fragmented? And when a play like Jon Robin Baitz’ Other Desert Cities is improbable, melodramatic, and…

VOLUBLE Once in my earnest youth I dogged a homeless man around lower Manhattan for a whole night, from his steady gig panhandling the car line into the Holland Tunnel through four hours’ can collecting.   I was under the influence of undergraduate-level brother’s keeperism and would not be put off by the man’s clear discomfort…

BOB’S HOLIDAY OFFICE FIASCO Bob’s Holiday Office Party, now in its 17th season, is basically a fifteen-minute Carol Burnett Show-type sketch stretched out to about 100 minutes. And unless a new director is brought on board, last night will remain my first and last experience at the party. For roughly the first 30 minutes, it…

SOME THINGS GO, SOME THINGS DON’T While it is refreshing that Cole Porter is experiencing a revival, it is unfortunate that the timeless brilliance of his music is attached to musicals whose books are mediocre at best and dated, most certainly. The challenge for the director handling a Porter musical is to manage these disparate…

LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA BRIDGES JAZZ, FOLK AND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC It’s only the first week of December and, if you’re anything like me, you may find yourself already burning out on the plethora of holiday-themed entertainment. Well, here is your chance to sneak out of that holiday party or avoid yet another staging of A…

A JOLLY OSMOND HOLIDAY To fans and detractors alike, Donny and Marie represent a cultural and show business ethos so strong, and so specific, that their actual talents sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Fifty years of Osmond entertainment creates a mythology of nostalgia, squared’”in both senses of the word’”their family friendly performance style isn’t…

SECOND CITY OFFERS A LUMP OF COAL * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Scene 1’”INTERIOR OF SPOOGE AND FARLEY’S CRITIC HOUSE (EVERWHEEZER SPOOGE, an irascible, irritated editor-in-chief and theater critic, is hunched over his laptop in his impoverished surroundings, trying to finish a review of Twist…

PALE-Y BY COMPARISON On paper, it must have seemed like such a great idea: create a new holiday show as an alternative to the onslaught of Christmas Carols and Nutcrackers, have Pulitzer-winning Donald Margulies adapt an ecumenical holiday story by literary darling, Grace Paley, add a touch of meta-nostalgia by including in the press release…

LAMC SHINES IN A HISTORICALLY INFORMED PERFORMANCE OF MONTEVERDI’S VESPERS OF 1610 After Los Angeles Master Chorale’s (LAMC) astoundingly successful performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (commonly known as the Vespers of 1610, having been published in that year), I felt the same rejuvenation and relaxation that would follow a luxuriant all-day…

BENJAMIN WALLFISCH DEBUTS HIS FIRST VIOLIN CONCERTO WITH LACO Benjamin Wallfisch, a burgeoning conductor and composer known primarily for his work on film and television scores, made his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO)  debut conducting the world premiere of his own Violin Concerto. Guest conductor Wallfisch towered over the podium at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and led…