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Los Angeles
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Opera / Theater Review: FIDELIO (LA Phil, Deaf West Theatre, and LA Master Chorale)
FAIR FIDELIO Fidelio is the sole opera written by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Inspired by an apocryphal story from the French revolution, it concerns Leonore, whose husband Florestan has been secretly imprisoned by an evil politician named Don Pizzarro. In order to rescue him, Leonore dresses up in male garb and gets a job in the…
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Music Review: PEKKA KUUSISTO + ELLEN REID (LA Phil Green Umbrella Series at Disney Hall)
TYMPANIST JOSEPH PEREIRA SURE KNOWS HIS KRAFT Sometimes concerts in the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella new music series are programmed around a singular thematic element. Sometimes they offer a range of works representing a particular school or mode of composition. Some showcase distinctive performance styles. If last Tuesday night’s long Green Umbrella program, curated by…
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First Look: WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Geffen)
ALBEE DAMNED Previews begin tonight at The Geffen Playhouse for Edward Albee’s most famous and most vicious masterpiece Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George and Martha, the American theater’s most notoriously dysfunctional couple, have invited the young and naïve Nick and Honey over for drinks. What begins as harmless patter escalates to outright marital warfare, with the…
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Music Review: FOCUS ON ANDRIESSEN (LA Phil)
A TRIUMPHANT ANDRIESSEN Dutch-born composer Louis Andriessen worked in numerous styles of musical modernism over the course of a prolific career that began in the 1950s and continued until shortly before his death last summer. In recent years the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned and premiered several Andriessen pieces and even issued recordings conducted by orchestra…
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Theater Review: BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY (Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles)
DOWN IN HARLEM Following the quirky, audacious Slave Play (see review) — the first show of Center Theatre Group’s season at The Taper — the company has done a complete 180 with their production of Pearl Cleage’s 1995 Blues for an Alabama Sky, which opened last night. While Slave Play attempted to turn the conversation…
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Film Screening: SLEEPING BEAUTY (El Capitan and The Academy Museum in Hollywood)
EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL ON THE BIG SCREEN Disney animators Andreas Deja and Floyd Norman will participate in a live Q&A at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood before their Sleeping Beauty screening on April 15, 2022 at 7pm; Ted Thomas, the son of legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas will moderate the session. The film’s original prop…
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Dance Review: LAZARUS & REVELATIONS (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at The Chandler)
AILEY IS ALWAYS A REVELATION(S) Bringing with them three complete programs of dazzling dance, this 2022 edition showcases Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s (AAADT) vital verve, reminding audiences why they retain a love affair with this American institution. An unprecedented two-week, three-program showcase plays through April 10, 2022. Never, and I mean never, in all the…
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Theater Review: A PUBLIC READING OF AN UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY ABOUT THE DEATH OF WALT DISNEY (Odyssey)
M-I-C-K-E-Y (WHY-OH-WHY-OH-WHY?!) When I saw Lucas Hnath’s name attached to A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney – a boldly-titled play now getting its West Coast Premiere at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles – I jumped at the chance to review it. The playwright’s been on my radar…
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Music Recommendation: MEHTA CONDUCTS BRUCKNER & BERG (LA Phil; April 7-10, 2022)
AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED On a website which attempts to list every Anton Bruckner orchestral recording offered to the public (www.abruckner.com), the discography collector and annotator John F. Berky states that the Austrian composer “expanded the concept of the symphonic form in ways that have never been witnessed before or since. When listening…
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Theater Review: CAN’T PAY? DON’T PAY! (The Actors’ Gang)
A PLAY THAT’S A RIOT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO RIOT While loading items into my trunk after shopping at a Fortune 500 store recently, I realized that an item had gone unchecked by the cashier. My instinct, naturally, was to make a 360 and go back into the store. Then I halted. This item…
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Theater Review: THE GIN GAME (Starring JoBeth Williams and Joe Spano at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura)
DEADWOOD OR GIN? Fine actors of stage, television, and film, JoBeth Williams and Joe Spano unite their decades of work and talent to kick off a national tour of The Gin Game at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura. Yet even with such names filling the stage in this intimate two-hander, D. L. Coburn’s tragicomedy…
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Film Screenings: KINUYO TANAKA; PEDRO ALMODÒVAR; HAYAO MIYAZAKI & MORE (Spring, 2022, The Academy Museum)
WHAT A LINE-UP! In addition to The Academy Museum’s ongoing series ’” Available Space, Branch Selects, Family Matinees, and Oscar ® Sundays ’” you will find some awesome screenings this spring, including a series on French filmmaker Chris Marker; films by directors Pedro Almodóvar and Spike Lee; six films by Kinuyo Tanaka; and encore presentations of movies by Hayao Miyazaki. Films are shown in 35mm,…
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Dance Tour: LUXERíŽA (Barcelona Flamenco Ballet)
Suspense, intrigue, sex, scandal, love: Luxurí®a (“Lust”), the latest flamenco dance-theater sensation from Spain’s internationally renowned Barcelona Flamenco Ballet. As part of a global tour, one performance only is set for The Alex Theatre in Los Angeles (Glendale) on Saturday, April 16 at 8pm. David Gutiérrez — photo by unniks.com Award-winning Barcelona Flamenco Ballet artistic directors, choreographers and ballarines principals (principal dancers) David Gutiérrez and Paula…
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Music Review: HILARY HAHN and PAAVO Jí„RVI (LA Phil) RANDALL GOOSBY and RODERICK COX (LACO)
Randall Goosby with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Roderick Cox conducting Now, why isn’t Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto played more often? It’s ridiculously beautiful in the first two movements, and fiery in the last. In fact, this may be the best solo work with orchestra of the three that Barber wrote. And Hilary Hahn performing…
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Dance Review: S.O.S. SIGNS OF STRENGTH (DIAVOLO & The Veterans Project at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
LIKE A ROCK To name S.O.S. SIGNS OF STRENGTH just a dance piece is like calling a geode just a rock, since there are many elements that make up the masses of mineral matter secluded within. As with war, there’s hardness on the outside, but there is beauty to be found deep inside. At The…
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Theater Review: TRAYF (Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles)
SCHISM BUDDIES “Are you Jewish?” Spoken by the leading players in playwright Lindsay Joelle’s Trayf, the question could also be relevant for the audience itself. Before you walk away dejected, know this: if you’ve never greeted anyone with “shalom” or heard of a “Mitzvah tank,” you’re probably (surprisingly) the play’s target audience – or at…
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Music & Dance Review: ST. MATTHEW PASSION (LA Opera)
THE LATEST PASSION IS NOT THE GREATEST PASSION It’s been a busy time in Los Angeles for the visiting dance company Hamburg Ballet. First, its company debut performance at The Music Center, Bernstein Dances, based on the music and spirit of the multi-talented composer Leonard Bernstein, was a truly enjoyable evening. But last Sunday, the…
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Dance Review: ABT FORWARD (The American Ballet Theater at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
WITH TWO WINNERS OUT OF THREE WORKS, ABT’S PROGRAM STILL SOARS AT SEGERSTROM Bursting with happiness, joy and beauty, The American Ballet Theater opened its program last night at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa. The opening number, Bernstein in a Bubble, was set to Leonard Bernstein’s rarely performed Divertimento (1980) — eight bagatelles, mostly running…
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Theater Review: ASSASSINS (East West Players)
THANKS TO SONDHEIM’S SONGS, THIS MUSICAL WILL NEVER DIE The cast is quite terrific with some extraordinary standouts in East West Players’ revival of Assassins, but it is Snehal Desai‘s awesomely inventive staging (and Preston Mui & Jasmine Rafael‘s movement direction) that betters John Doyle and his recent Off-Broadway outing. Not withstanding the company’s incredible…
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Theater Review: THE PLAY YOU WANT (Road Theatre)
THE PLAY WE NEED What starts as a joke ends in a laugh — all the way to the bank! — in The Play You Want, a world premiere comedy by Bernardo Cubría. Directed by Michael John Garcés, the play is a product of The Road Theatre Company’s playwriting workshop, Under Construction. I don’t know…
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