Los Angeles

THE THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM When Mahler visited Sibelius in 1907, the two composers talked about “the essence of symphony.” Mahler rejected his colleague’s creed of severity, style and logic, saying that “a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” 12 years earlier, at work on his Third, he had remarked that…

I’LL BE THERE WITH BELL ON Many know that Academy of St Martin in the Fields is a touring and recording chamber orchestra founded by Sir Neville Marriner in 1958. But did you know that since 2011 the world-renowned virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell has been their Music Director? Next to Marriner, who turns 92 in…

TRIFONOV’S DEBUT RECITAL AT DISNEY HALL All it took was one performance from Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov) to resoundingly validate for me why he is the current Big Thing of the piano world. The Liszt-like master’s rendition of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (followed by a…

TOWARD A SAFE THEATER In 2015 Bathsheba Doran’s The Mystery of Love & Sex opened to mixed notices Off  Broadway, which seems to be the exact pipeline for shows to get produced at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum a year or so later. It fits the bill for new-millennial regional theater production in pretty much every way:…

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE STAGE Every time I see Leon Russom I wish I had his body. Lean like a dancer, he uses the solidity of his shoulders, the slimness of his hips to create character and emphasize moment. The Coen Brothers like to cast him as movie cops, but I first saw him onstage…

TAKE A TRIP TO POCATELLO Since this is a Samuel D. Hunter play, its setting is a nondescript town in Idaho whose business district is beseiged  by big-box stores and chain restaurants — in this case  a pre-fabricated eatery laden with  temperamental  technology. But unlike his previous studies in isolation, this group portrait of hinterland culture represents the author’s…

THE CRASH OF SYMBOLISM As part of its City of Light: A Century of Music From Paris series, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is presenting Debussy’s one-of-a-kind opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, in its entirety. Helmed by the rightfully popular Esa-Pekka Salonen, the LA Phil and Los Angeles Master Chorale  will be joined by  Kate Burton as the narrator,  Stéphane…

SOMEWHAT FORCED, WE STILL GET THE  GLORY OF WEST SIDE STORY Strangely enough,  West Side Story  feels more dated than  Romeo and Juliet, its 500-year-old inspiration. Compared to Shakespeare’s dedicated tragedy, the musical is less violent, claiming only three lives to the Bard’s five (although, in the second act,  one character  barely escapes being raped). And while these juvenile delinquents are…

ONE NERDY, ANAL AND SINGULAR SENSATION The first two weeks of June, 2001, was a very good time to attend Broadway shows. On one day alone, I saw The Producers at 2:00, The Rocky Horror Show (with Dick Cavett, Lea Delaria & Raúl Esparza) at 5:00 and The Music Man (with Eric McCormack, the greatest…

JUST ADD WATERS It’s edifying how much of practical value you can learn at the theater. I found out last night, for example, that if John Waters invites you over, you’ve got some work to do first: “You’re not taking a shit at my house. Dinner guests should eliminate before arriving. I don’t want you…

MAGIC STRIKES TWICE IN THE SAME PLACE In 2013, a new production of The Magic Flute from Berlin’s Komische Oper became a sell-out sensation, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera. Now, it returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion starting Saturday, February 13, and then playing for six performances only. Directors Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky…

A  FUNNY AND NOT-SO FUNNY THING An irresistible mix of Roman “new comedy,” commedia dell’arte, and vaudeville, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum rivals The Producers as the funniest musical comedy ever. Cabrillo  Music Theatre’s tame-yet-still-diverting revival is fine  for the first-time visitor to this once and future 1962 smasheroo. The gags here are…

COLORFUL COLORATURA IN A CLUNKY CANDIDE There isn’t much I could say about the musical Candide that hasn’t been written about before. Leonard Bernstein created one of our greatest Broadway scores when he – along with Lillian Hellman (book), Richard Wilbur (lyrics) and John Latouche (additional lyrics) – adapted Voltaire’s 1758 novel satirizing the mores…

CENSORSHIP COMES TO LOS ANGELES The Wooster Group has let Stage  and Cinema know  that Samuel French, Inc., which manages the United States rights for Harold Pinter’s work, has banned  critics from reviewing (or reviewers from criticizing) the world premiere of Wooster’s production  of his  The Room  at REDCAT, opening next week on February 4, 2016 and running through February 14….

COME HOLLER FOR MAHLER A pair of mind-blowing works meets a stunning pair of artists when the Los Angeles Philharmonic plays a full weekend beginning Friday night, January 29, 2016.  LA Phil Conductor Laureate  Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to Disney Hall to lead Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, with soloist Yefim Bronfman, and Mahler’s First Symphony. Beethoven’s first piano…

DREAMY There were some noticeable threads in three seemingly disparate works presented at Disney Hall. The program consisted of Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony — one of the great listener favorites in the entire canon of Romantic symphonies; Brahms’ impellent, magnificent, and demanding First Piano Concerto; and the West Coast premiere of Spanish composer Cristóbal Halffter’s Tiento…