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Music
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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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CD Review: LOVE IS HERE TO STAY: TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL (Verve and Columbia)
PLEASE TELL ME LOVE ISN’T HERE TO STAY Jazz-light comes a callin’ with Tony Bennett and Diana Krall’s latest effort, 12 tracks of George Gershwin tunes that have been playing the hit parade since they were written in the 20s and 30s. The majority have lyrics by brother Ira, and many were introduced by Fred…
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Opera Review: SIEGFRIED (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
FANTASTIC FANTASY, BUT STILL LEAVES YOU FRIED Beautiful. Exhausting. Whimsical. That’s how I would describe Siegfried — in that order. The third installment of Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle has all the gorgeous music you would expect, played by an excellent orchestra and sung by an international cast of musician-actors. At a run-time of five hours,…
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Music Review: JONI 75: A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION LIVE (Various Artists at the Chandler in Los Angeles)
SOMETHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR THIS BORDERLINE CONCERT A blindingly colossal line-up of some of music’s greatest stars offered their interpretation of Joni Mitchell songs last night in Los Angeles. With names including James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Seal, Chaka Khan, and Joni’s fellow Canadians Diana Krall and Rufus Wainwright, the excitement was palpable from the sold-out crowd…
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CD Review: DESTINATION RACHMANINOV — DEPARTURE (Daniil Trifonov, pianist; The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin)
TAKE THIS DEPARTURE All it took was one live 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 jaw-dropping encore…
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Opera Review: SATYAGRAHA (LA Opera)
A NONVIOLENT REVIEW What is it about Philip Glass’s operas that have completely captivated me? You would think that all of that minimalism — the spellbinding reiterating arpeggios, unhurried modulations and almost uniform orchestrations — would bore me to tears. Perhaps there’s something mathematical or perfectly in harmony with nature (or in nature with the…
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Music Preview: MENDELSSOHN & SIBELIUS STRING QUARTETS (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
CHAMBER MUSIC WITH THE LA PHIL: MENDELSSOHN & SIBELIUS STRING QUARTETS Sibelius’s String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56 (1908-1909) is one of his most mature, significant, and inspirational chamber works. Indeed, it’s the only substantial chamber work he produced after the turn of the century. He wrote it in between the Third and Fourth…
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Film and Music Preview: NOSFERATU & VAMPYR (Theatre at the Ace Hotel and Disney Hall)
SILENT SCREAMS Two of the spookiest horror films ever made were completed before much of today’s audiences were born. One, Nosferatu, is far better known than the other, especially for the creepy-ass make-up given to the vampire. But have you ever heard of Vampyr, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1932 masterpiece? Horror buffs have, as it regularly…
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CD Review: LET THERE BE LOVE (Peggy Sarlin)
LOVE PREVAILS Some people give up hope and let their lives fall away after a disaster. Not Peggy Sarlin, a singer and writer whose husband had a stroke in 2012. In 2016, the chanteuse — who had written for Bette Midler and Patti LuPone — released the successful Friends and Family, a most relatable collection…
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CD Review: BLUES DIALOGUES: MUSIC BY BLACK COMPOSERS (Rachel Barton Pine, violin)
AN ALLURING, STYLISH ASSORTMENT OF WORKS DRENCHED IN THE TIMELESS STYLE OF THE BLUES I was lucky enough to see violinist Rachel Barton Pine in Los Angeles twice last year with both the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Pasadena Symphony, performing Mozart and Vivaldi. Adroit, sophisticated, vigorous, sensitive and profound only begin to scratch the surface…
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Opera Review: IDOMENEO (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
IDOMENABLE After nearly a week of striking musicians and cancelled performances, Lyric Opera is now back on schedule and giving audiences what they want. With Mozart’s Idomeneo, audiences are more likely getting what they didn’t know they wanted because they’ve never experienced this opera before. Last performed at Lyric during the 1997-98 season, Idomeneo is…
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Music & Dance Preview: ROMEO AND JULIET (LA Phil and L.A. Dance Project at Disney Hall)
A WHOLE NEW DANCE PROJECT WITH LA PHIL Romeo and Juliet is probably Prokofiev’s best dramatic work (I say “probably” because “hearing” the duck being eaten by the wolf in Peter and the Wolf nearly traumatized my childhood). Arguably, it’s his best orchestral work. Positively, it’s his most lyrical, emotional, and deeply moving work. Yet…
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CD Review: BEETHOVEN VIOLIN SONATAS NOS. 6, 7 & 8 (Andrew Wan and Charles Richard-Hamelin)
BEETHOVEN’S VIOLIN SONATAS, OP. 30: SONATA THING WRONG HERE Beethoven composed his Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Op. 30 in 1801-02, completing most of the work between March and May of 1802. Dedicated to Czar Alexander I of Russia, the three sonatas — A major, C minor and G major — were developed during a…
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Music Preview: ALISA WEILERSTEIN: COMPLETE BACH CELLO SUITES (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
WEILERSTEIN TO WOW AT THE WALLIS I had been following Alisa Weilerstein for over a decade, but until a few years ago it was only on recordings and YouTube. Having seen her perform live three times since I can assert that the phenomenal American cellist has attracted attention worldwide because her playing combines a natural…
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Music Preview: THE CZECH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa)
A NEW WORLD OF DVOŘíK AT SEGERSTROM In 2014, Decca released a 6-CD box set by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) of the complete symphonies and concertos of Antonín Dvořák. CPO has long been celebrated for their interpretations of their nation’s most beloved composer, but I don’t remember when I’ve been quite so taken with…
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