Whether it’s half an opera, three quarters an operetta, or a musical and a half, Francesca Zambello’s team put together a production that was easy to fall in love with.
Monstyrska dominates as Abigaille, Domingo brings his unique baritenor style to the title role, Thaddeus Strassberger creates a riot of colour and antiquarian style.
BalletNOW returns to the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center in Los Angeles. The production features dancers from six different major ballet companies, but fails to impress.
TCHAIKOVSKY, PRO ET CONTRA is a ballet by Boris Eifman that beautifully examines how Tchaikovsky's internal struggles inspired his amazing music that inspires still.
On Saturday night, nine androgynous, saucy, rambunctious dancing witches with thick, three-foot tails and exuberant tassels, whose heritage included the Wizard of Oz and the Lion King, stole the show.
Towering architectural sets, expansive multifaceted dancing, and an detailed playing from an exceptional orchestra deliver an emotional performance in Alexei Ratmansky's Russian adaptation of Prokofiev's Cinderella for Mariinsky Ballet.
Roberto Bolle and Herman Cornejo bring their shared gala program, BalletNow to Los Angeles. With a cast of twenty dancers, BalletNow is an innovative split bill that features European and Latin American stars. Two works feature Bolle dancing in interactive film sequences.
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.
Australian Ballet takes Graeme Murphy's multifaceted <em>Swan Lake</em> to LA. A mad Odette, a baroness Von Rothbart as the prince's mistress and a pleasing blend of classical and contmeporary features.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Almost any singer with Plácido Domingo’s résumé would be happily retired from the stage at age 71, but Domingo is obviously not any singer. With over 140 roles performed, the Spanish tenor’s legacy is unparalleled, and that legacy is still growing.
What makes for a good performance of Don Giovanni? Some have called it the greatest drama in opera, and with music by Mozart at the height of his compositional powers, its status as a masterpiece of Classical music is undisputed. Los Angeles Opera’s opening night production had elements both outstanding and troubled.
After the success of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia, Britten and director/librettist Eric Crozier discussed future operatic projects. The composer wanted his next opera to be a comedy and insisted that it be set in England. When Crozier suggested adapting Guy de Maupassant’s La Rosier de Madame Husson, Britten knew he was on to something good. Indeed, it was an ideal choice.
