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Quinn Kelsey shines as Verdi’s court jester as Tomer Zvulun's production opens in Los Angeles. 

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic open their “Mahler Grooves” festival, featuring Simon Keenlyside and Ekaterina Gubanova in Des Knaben Wunderhorn. 

Angela Meade and Russell Thomas provide the vocal fireworks in LA Opera's staging of David Hockney's beloved production designs. 

Shawna Lucey's production from San Francisco Opera misses the mark as it premieres to a packed Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. 

A fully-staged performance of Wagner's Das Rheingold transforms Walt Disney Concert Hall to an opera house where the orchestra is the star. 

Conductor Emeritus Zubin Mehta leads The Los Angeles Philharmonic in an unforgettable reading of Mahler's massive symphony, played with incredible virtuosity and led with remarkable assurance.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic soars in Mahler's profound Ninth Symphony, conducted by the legendary Michael Tilson Thomas.

The soloists and LA Master Chorale lead the way in a performance of Mozart's “Great” C minor Mass conducted by Zubin Mehta. 

“I missed dress applause!” Renée Fleming returns to live performance in style with a recital alongside pianist Inon Barnatan. 

Angela Meade fills in for an indisposed soprano in Los Angeles Opera’s company debut of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.

Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice enjoys its world premiere at LA Opera. 

The Los Angeles Philharmonic brought back its Conductor Emeritus, Zubin Mehta, for an outstanding performance of Mahler's “Resurrection” Symphony as part of its 100th anniversary celebrations. 

Meredith Monk's ATLAS is presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Yuval Sharon's production.

What can multimedia wizardry add to Mahler's masterpiece? 

Renée Fleming joins the Pacific Symphony for Strauss, Italian Songs and Rodgers and Hammerstein. 

Angela Meade is the standout on opening night of Los Angeles Opera's Norma.

American composer Jake Heggie makes his Los Angeles Opera debut in this powerful performance of his 2010 opera, Moby-Dick.

Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in an "Immortal Beethoven" performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Zeffirelli excess and Woody Allen wit: Los Angeles Opera's season opens with a double bill of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

A starry night at the Hollywood Bowl for Gustavo Dudamel, Alice Sara Ott, Miah Persson, Gerald Finley and the LA Phil to perform Mozart.

A remarkable debut from cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Ensemble Signal perform a world première by Steven Mackey and Three Tales by Steve Reich.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists performed Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Costa Mesa.

James Robinson's production of Adams' Nixon in China hits its stride at San Diego Opera. 

Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland is performed by the Los Angeles Philarharmonic, conducted by Susanna Mälkki. This is no Disney movie! 

A triumph for Los Angeles Opera's new production of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles.

A well-rehearsed and cohesive Bohème in San Diego, although with some vocal disappointments. 

There aren’t too many more ambitious pieces of music one could choose to celebrate a birthday than Beethoven's Missa solemnis.

Where is the line? Where does the stage end and the audience begin? This is what Australian director Barrie Kosky probes in his production pairing Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews Los Angeles Opera's season-opening performance of Verdi's La traviata starring Plácido Domingo, Nino Machaidze, and Arturo Chacón-Cruz.

Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello open San Diego Opera's season in a generous duo recital.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews San Diego Opera's season-closing production of Massenet's Don Quixote starring Ferruccio Furlanetto.

“It is not his trial, it is mine, mine. It is I whom the devil awaits.” Richard Croft's Vere leads an outstanding cast in LA Opera's revival of Billy Budd.

Playing hard to get has its rewards. At least that's what Donizetti tells us in The Elixir of Love that gives a charming opera a fresh take. 

San Diego Opera's season opening Pagliacci focused squarely on the character of Tonio, in Andrew Sinclair's intriguing vision for this verismo classic. But the vocal performances were lacking. A director can only do so much.

It is hard to believe that Anne Sofie von Otter has been on the international scene for over 25 years, and after all this time, her voice is in remarkable shape. Coupled here with the equally esteemed Emanuel Ax, this intimate recital communicated a great depth of understanding in the music.

Read our review of Nicholas Hytner's production of Verdi­'s Don Carlo in its 2010 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

In the bicentenary anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi, tributes are aplenty. On Saturday evening, Los Angeles Opera presented a new production of the Italian master’s final work, Falstaff, though that wasn’t all.

Of the “ABCs” of opera (Aida, Bohème, and Carmen), Bizet’s masterpiece is the one that has made the transition to pop culture ubiquity. Surely even the most oblivious of listeners are able to whistle along to the “Habanera” and “Toreador Song”. Furthermore, the melodramatic story of exoticism, lust and rejection is one of the most popular of operatic tales.

“The most beautiful sound an audience can make,” Dudamel told the expectant masses, “is silence.” They chuckled knowingly. Dudamel’s request was borne out of the obvious production being made of Tuesday night’s performance. The giant boom and manned onstage cameras indicated that the performance was indeed being filmed.

Seeing a classical concert at the Hollywood Bowl is always an event. While (to put it kindly) it is not the ideal acoustic for classical music, the iconic venue is surrounded by glowing hills and always seems to have perfect weather.

Even Emperor Josef II would have thought this was a bad idea. The real-life monarch depicted in Peter Shaffer’s fictional play Amadeus quite memorably forbade ballet in his court operas. But the absurdity of the dancers carrying on with no music playing in Mozart’s Act III convinced the Emperor that he was in the wrong.

Aida typifies all that is grand about opera. Its exotic setting, majestic music, and dramatic love triangle can make for an evening unique among performing arts events. It’s not a bad way to close an opera season either. San Diego Opera did so on Saturday, capping a uniformly satisfying season with Zandra Rhodes’ vibrant production that was refreshing and at times thrilling.

An internationally acclaimed singer with a career spanning well over 30 years should be granted almost whatever role he’d like to do. It would also be understandable if the singer chose a well-known, crowd-pleasing piece, but, as is quite evident by now, Ferruccio Furlanetto is not a typical singer.

While the term “Eurotrash” gets thrown around more often than it should, it is one that has unfortunately become synonymous with many of the Wagner opera productions that take a non-traditional approach. As opera-goers go, I tend to sympathize with the directors and find that this approach can work fantastically well in bringing Wagner’s logistically impossible scenarios to life.

To Camille Saint-Saëns, the operatic appeal of the biblical subject of Samson is perfectly understandable. Theoretically, the story contains the dramatic trappings of exciting grand opera: a romance, tragedy, larger-than-life setting, a ballet. But for current operatic audiences, it is easy for the subject to appear stale. With a lack of dramatic dynamism, staging this piece can be a challenge.

Chicks dig the high notes. The enduring popularity of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment seems to indicate as much. The plot is silly (even by opera’s standards) and much of the music is not as memorable as some of Donizetti’s more popular works.

One would think that either Renée Fleming or Susan Graham alone would be reason enough to sell out a large venue such as Disney Hall. But everything is bigger in Hollywood, and the LA Phil brought both artists together for a one-night recital of French art song. But even that wasn’t enough.

Sharing a concert with Beethoven can be a tough assignment. The old stalwart is, with good reason, still a popular draw to the concert hall. As part of its centenary celebration of Witold Lutosławski, the LA Phil chose to pair music of Beethoven with that of the Polish composer.

Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is an odd piece. Despite having a rich recorded legacy, it is not a piece that one encounters often in the concert hall. The technical challenges of this music are up there with virtually any other piece of combined music for choir and orchestra.