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Los Angeles
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Los Angeles Opera Preview: CRUZAR LA CARA DE LA LUNA (The Soraya in Northridge)
A MAGNIFICENT MARIACHI OPERA COMES TO THE SORAYA It was by sheer luck that I was in Chicago and happened upon the world’s first mariachi opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon). Even though it immediately became one of my favorite operas, I knew that this type of…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: IRONBOUND (Geffen Playhouse in Westwood)
THE JOY OF SURVIVAL Marin Ireland is mesmerizing and deeply moving in Ironbound. She plays Daria, a Polish immigrant. To my ear, her accent is impeccable — and most importantly, entirely consistent. We believe she is searching for the best English words to express herself, and often her syntax has an authenticity of its own….
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Los Angeles Music Review: BERNSTEIN’S MASS (Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel)
A MASSIVE MASS FOR THE MASSES It’s a happening in Disney Hall. And there’s no better way to salute Leonard Bernstein in his hundredth year than a humongous and awesome presentation of his rarely produced Mass. How did a secular humanist Jewish composer come to write a a modernized interpretation of sacred Mass texts, including…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: BERLIN PHILHARMONIC WIND QUINTET WITH STEPHEN HOUGH (The Wallis)
HOUGH AND PUFF The glorious Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet is coming to The Wallis in Beverly Hills as part of a very short, nine-stop North American tour. As if having this prestigious ensemble on February 10 isn’t exciting enough, the great pianist Stephen Hough (pronounced “Huff”) will be playing with the Quintet here in Beverly…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE LAST WIFE (Cygnet)
THE LAST WIFE GETS IT RIGHT Historical fiction can be a dicey game, let alone a modernization of historical figures. When the results are as captivating as Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife, be prepared for some stimulating theater while brushing up on your history lessons. When speaking of British History, Katherine Parr may not be…
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Concert Review: MEOW MEOW (with Pink Martini’s Thomas M. Lauderdale)
THE DIVINE MISS MM When you hear the words “performance art,” do you envision a motionless Marina Abramovic allowing a 10-foot boa constrictor to wrap itself around her head? And when you hear the term “cabaret,” do you think of tired patter, same-old showtunes, and folks who’re trying to jump-start their career? Well, prepare to…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE HOTHOUSE (Antaeus Theatre in Glendale)
A TRAGI-COMEDY OF VIOLENCE Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse is exactly the kind of play I hope to see at the Antaeus Theatre Company. It is a classic to some but not to others, and there’s a lot of leeway in the text for bold choices, its themes are relevant ’” some might say eerily so…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE FULL MONTY (San Diego Musical Theatre)
THE FULL MONTY IS WORTH BARING IN MIND When the main factory in town shuts down and only menial work, far below previous pay grade, can be found, what’s a man supposed to do? For the two central men in The Full Monty, the answer is to create a one-night-only strip show to compete with…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: CANDIDE (LA Opera)
YES, WE CANDIDE There isn’t much I could say about the musical Candide that hasn’t been written about before. What I can say is never miss an opportunity to catch a production, especially when it’s a full-on spectacle like the one opening tonight with LA Opera. Leonard Bernstein created one of our greatest Broadway scores when he…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: ASTAIRE DANCES (American Contemporary Ballet)
I’LL TAKE ASTAIRE’S WAY TO PARADISE The great ballet choreographer George Balanchine compared Fred Astaire to Bach, and Baryshnikov claimed Astaire gave him an inferiority complex. Katharine Hepburn once said about his partnership with Ginger Rogers: “He gives her class, and she gives him sex.” Astaire himself said, “I don’t make love by kissing, I…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: ARTURO SANDOVAL JAZZ WEEKEND (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
ARTURO SANDOVAL’S AMAZING JAZZ WEEKEND IS HERE! He moves easily across many varieties of jazz and instruments — using his trumpet to produce a fiery assortment of resonances, interchangeably stately, amusing and starry-eyed. The mighty, vibrant, effervescent Cuban trumpet player, big band leader, and composer Arturo Sandoval — a protégé of Dizzy Gillespie — is…
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Los Angeles Music Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS BRAHMS (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
A WEEKEND OF FIRSTS Gustavo Dudamel returns to the podium this weekend — Thursday through Sunday, January 25-28, 2018 — to lead the LA Phil in a concert easily predicted to be a stunner. Brahms First Symphony, on which he labored for so long (over 14 years), is an openly passionate work, the last great…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE CHOSEN (Fountain)
LOVE AND “COMPASSIONATE SILENCE” We are living through an era that seems to value greed, hypocrisy, narcissism and blatant dishonesty over truth and meaning. This makes the journey into the world of Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok’s The Chosen that much more satisfying. It feels as impactful as a dear friend’s determined embrace, the kind…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: A DELICATE SHIP (Road Theatre Company in North Hollywood)
THESE THINGS MUST BE DONE DELICATELY If you lose your way trying to navigate the enigmatic journey Anna Ziegler wants to take us in her well-written but thematically dense A Delicate Ship, keep your eye on Josh Zuckerman – it’ll be impossible not to – because he has found the human trajectory that Nate, one of…
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Los Angeles Music Review: YARN/WIRE (Monday Evening Concerts at The Colburn School)
THEY’LL LEAVE YOU WIRED For those who don’t know, Monday Evening Concerts is L.A.’s longest running new music show, dating to back to 1939. To put its legacy in to perspective, the series hosted Pierre Boulez’s American debut and a few Stravinsky premieres. Now it exists much in the same way, premiering works by emerging or established…
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Music Preview: WELL-STRUNG (National Tour)
LOOKING GOOD FROM FRONT AND BACH The Los Angeles LGBT Center has announced a special one-night-only return of the internationally acclaimed singing string quartet Well-Strung. The four performers specialize in pairing universally recognized classical pieces while singing pop music hits by the likes of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, and others. As part of their…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: LOUISIANA PURCHASE (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
RARELY PRODUCED BERLIN SCORE COMES TO LIFE No doubt when folks hear “Louisiana Purchase,” they think of Thomas Jefferson’s gargantuan land acquisition from France in 1803, a purchase which resulted soon thereafter in Lewis and Clark’s expedition. So, is this the subject of the musical Louisiana Purchase? Nope. Wait… What..? You mean you’ve never even…
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Theater and Music Preview: IL RITORNO (Circa Contemporary Circus)
AN OPERATIC CIRCUS ODYSSEY The uber-innovative Australian performance troupe, Circa, returns to the States with its newest production, Il Ritorno, a unique production that melds circus arts with Baroque opera to explore themes of loss and displacement. This special engagement takes place one night only, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at the gorgeous Musco Center for the…
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Los Angeles Music and Dance Preview: Mí„LKKI, STRAUSS & DANCE (Zimmermann’s Cello Concerto & Alpine Symphony, Susanna Målkki and the LA Phil)
DANCE! U.S. PREMIERE! ALPINE SYMPHONY! One of the reasons that the LA Phil is doing better than ever is the programming variety. With plenty of classics, we are also getting a slew of new music, much of it seeing its premiere at The Walt Disney Concert Hall (there will be over 50 such works next…
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Theater Review: SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS (National Tour at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
YOU LEAVE SEEKING PEACE AND A PLOT When a play comes along that is entirely different from any play that has preceded it, especially in our era of over-informative white noise and copycatting creativity, it deserves attention. Even Small Mouth Sounds — Bess Wohl’s 2016 work, now stopping at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica as…
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