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Opera Review: ELEKTRA (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
AN ELEKTRA WITHOUT ELEKTRICITY The first show I ever reviewed in Chicago was The Hypocrites’ All Our Tragic at the Den Theatre, a marathon twelve-hour distillation of every surviving Greek tragedy. It was an extraordinary experience. I’ve also seen a one-night performance of the complete Oresteia of Aeschylus and read both Sophocles’ and Euripedes’ versions…
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CD Review: ASCENT (Matthew Lipman, viola, Henry Kramer, piano, on Çedille Records)
AN ACT OF ASCENSION For years, violas and violists have been the butt of some truly funny jokes: Q: How do you keep your violin from getting stolen? A: Put it in a viola case. Q: What’s the difference between a dead skunk and a crushed viola in the road? A. Skid marks before the…
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Music Preview: BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET & YUKO MABUCHI TRIO (Segerstrom Concert Hall)
JAZZIN’ HOT IN COSTA MESA With propulsive muscled arrangements, intense high-powered playing, and ceaseless creativity, saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis is one of his best and brightest musicians that America has ever produced, and his proficiency in both jazz and classical is mind-boggling. He joins his hard-swinging yet sensitive quartet to heat up the winter for one…
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Music Review: ZUBIN MEHTA’S BRAHMS (LA Phil)
ZUBIN (MEH)TA Since classical concerts are scheduled up to two years in advance, there is no possible way to know if an artist will need to be replaced. This is why, in opera for example, singers don’t always seem best-suited for each other when one must cancel. But it’s also how I discovered some bedazzling…
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Dance & Music Preview: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO & THIRD COAST PERCUSSION (The Wallis)
HUBBA-HUBBA-HUBBARD As one of the world’s most important contemporary dance companies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago encompasses a vast array of techniques and forms, as well as an understanding of abstract artistry and the emotional nuances of movement. With an exuberant, athletic, and innovative repertoire, Hubbard Street presents performances that inspire, yes, but also challenge how…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: DECK THE HALL HOLIDAY CONCERTS, 2018 (Disney Hall)
EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN ONE DECKED-OUT HALL The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s  Deck the Hall  Holiday Concerts  at Disney Hall are just around the corner, and the variety this year is awesome. Be  enchanted by the ever-popular  Holiday Sing-Along (Dec. 22 at 11:30am and 2:30pm), hosted this year by Melissa Peterman, who wows us every year at the Sing-A-Long Sound of…
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CD Review: BERLIOZ’S ROMÉO ET JULIETTE (San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas)
HERE’S WHAT LOVE IS What’s in a name? That which we call a symphony by any other name would sound as sweet. In the way that Monteverdi rethought the madrigal, so too did Berlioz re-imagine symphonies. He altered any previous preconceptions of what a symphony can be with his Symphonie fantastique (my first classical album!)…
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Opera Review: CENDRILLON (CINDERELLA) (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
I TELL OF A HELL OF A CINDERELLA Never before performed at Lyric Opera, Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon cannot be more delightful, especially for those who love the lightness of French opera. Indeed, it is the only French opera programmed this season, and the second Massenet in three years. The score’s exuberance and playfulness is reminiscent…
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Music Review: MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS AND PATHÉTIQUE (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
NOTHING LIKE MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS EVER WAS Michael Tilson Thomas is a rock star. The Los Angeles native, who made his conducting debut here 50 years ago, proved last night at Disney Hall that he not only maintains a Bernstein-like vigor at the podium — bringing pulse-pounding magic and emotion to Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique —  he…
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CD Review: HYMN (Sarah Brightman)
TIME TO SAY GOODBYE She stands on the cover of her latest album, Hymn, like a diva who just came down from Sinai with the word of God, but instead of 10 Commandments, the British Broadway, West End, and ersatz-pop star Sarah Brightman is wearing a tight golden dress — not unlike Cecil B. deMille’s…
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Music Preview: CALLING ALL ANGELS (Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles Holiday Spectacular)
MAKE THE YULETIDE GAY Attending GMCLA’s Holiday Spectaculars is more like a pilgrimage for me, and is a no-brainer when choosing my wintertime concerts. The musical extravaganza this year, Holiday Spectacular: Calling All Angels, plays at Glendale’s gorgeous Alex Theatre for four performances Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 15 & 16, 2018. What better way is there…
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CD Review: LIMITLESS (The Piano Guys)
ACTUALLY, THERE ARE LIMITS You know The Piano Guys, right? Their YouTube channel is one of the most popular on the planet? Technically, it’s the duo of pianist Jon Schmidt and cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, but there’s two more. The squeaky-clean 21st-century multimedia Utah-based empire is also producer Al van der Beek and videographer Paul Anderson,…
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Chicago Opera Review: IL TROVATORE (Lyric Opera)
A FORMIDABLE CAST CASTS ITS CAST AROUND YOUR HEART Perhaps Verdi’s most popular opera, Il Trovatore (The Troubadour) was revived at Lyric as recently as the 2014/15 season, which itself was a revival production. Now as then, audiences are transported back in time to experience Sir David McVicar’s Goya-esque interpretation of Verdi’s gypsy drama. While…
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Music Review: CAMERON CARPENTER PLAYS SAINT-SAí‹NS (LA Phil; Roderick Cox, conductor)
COX ROCKS Sharing a program with organ superstar Cameron Carpenter, a most exciting young conductor graced Disney Hall last weekend with his triumphant debut. Roderick Cox from Macon, Georgia, is one of the very few black conductors world-wide; tall, statuesque, handsome and elegant, the 31-year-old has an air of sophistication swirling about him (aided, no…
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CD Review: EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAIME (Original West End Recording)
DANCE PARTY AS MUSICAL SCORE Based on a 2011 BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, this pop musical tells in two acts the story of Jamie New, who dreams of being nothing more than a professional drag queen. Verbally taunted by a bully, but surrounded by a slew of loving classmates and a bestie, Jamie is…
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Opera Preview: HANSEL AND GRETEL (LA Opera)
ONCE UPON A TIME: : An intrepid pair of siblings took a dreamlike journey to unexpected places. The iconic Brothers Grimm story leaps from page to stage with a production pocked with perky puppets created by director Doug Fitch. Sure, a witch wants to bake some kids into gingerbread and eat them, but this deliciously…
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Music & Theater Review: THE TEMPEST (LA Phil and The Old Globe at Disney Hall in Los Angeles)
TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT An ill wind hit Disney Hall last weekend with this collaboration between LA Phil’s Guest Conductor Susanna Målkki and Old Globe Theatre’s Artisitic Director Barry Edelstein. Pairing edited versions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Jean Sibelius’s incidental music is a great idea, but the waste of talent and energy and money was…
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CD Review: LET THERE BE CELLO (2Cellos)
CELLO, I MUST BE GOING A little bit Celtic, a little bit rock and roll, a little bit classical, a little bit world music, and a lotta schmaltz and you get the idea behind 2Cellos, the duo of youthful, sexy Croatians Luka Š ulić and Stjepan Hauser. who put their skillful playing behind revamps and remakes…
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Opera Review: IOLANTA (Chicago Opera Theater)
HOT IOLANTA, OR LOVE REALLY IS BLIND A glorious 126-year-old discovery just happened again. First performed at Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater in 1892 (on a double-bill with The Nutcracker), the one-act Iolanta is the last of eleven operas written by the great Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Running for only one more weekend, this 85-minute Slavic gem, performed in Russian…
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CD Review: SIX EVOLUTIONS: BACH CELLO SUITES (Yo-Yo Ma)
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH Last night at The Wallis Performing Arts Center in Beverly Hills, I was privileged to witness MacArthur “Genius” Alisa Weilerstein (A-LEE-sah WYE-ler-steen) perform all six of Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites. It felt almost surreal to do this after driving through horrendous L.A. traffic listening to updates on the mass murder in…
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