The Los Angeles classical music scene is one of the most dynamic in the United States. A recent weekend jaunt to see performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Opera confirmed just why.
The L.A. Philharmonic has become one the most envied symphony orchestras in the country, and that's in large part to its sparkling new digs at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Opened in 2003, this Frank Gehry-designed concert hall is an architectural and acoustical marvel that sonically makes the music fresh and alive.
The L.A. Philharmonic is generating lots of publicity with its famed music director, the 29-year-old Venezuelan-born Gustavo Dudamel. PBS made a point of broadcasting Dudamel's inaugural 2009 concert as music director, and it's available on DVD through Deutsche Grammophon.
But for my own inaugural visit at Disney Concert Hall, I was able to catch openly gay British composer and conductor Thomas Adès leading the L.A. Philharmonic in polished performances of three of his own works ( Violin Concerto, Dances from Powder Her Face and the pieces These Premises Are Alarmed ) and Respighi's Feste Romane—a joyous and frenetic work with organ that sonically showed off most of the building's acoustical bells and whistles.
Still in his 30s, Adès is famous for his 2004 opera adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest and especially for his 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face, which is all about the sex scandals and humiliating court trials of the real-life Margaret, Duchess of Argyll ( it notoriously has a fellatio aria ) . Adès' full-symphonic expansion of the opera's Overture, Waltz and Finale was particularly impressive and bouncy.
L.A. Philharmonic audiences can consider themselves lucky to have such a gem in Disney Concert Hall, and for its young conducting talent. Adès returns to conduct a series of concerts in L.A. next season. ( Visit www.laphil.com for more information. )
Over at L.A. Opera, more classical superstar talent can be found with world-famous tenor Placido Domingo as general director and music director James Conlon ( who is also music director of our own Ravinia Festival ) .
But what truly impresses me about L.A. Opera is its Recovered Voices series that seeks to perform works by European composers who were suppressed or murdered by the Nazi regime ( Conlon has also championed such composers as music director of the Ravinia Festival ) .
What prompted me to journey out west was L.A. Opera's American premiere of Franz Schreker's large-scale1918 work The Stigmatized ( Die Gezeichneten ) . Schreker ( 1879-1934 ) was feted as one of the greatest operatic composers in Vienna and Berlin, and it's easily to hear why in his lushly scored late Romantic music for The Stigmatized ( Much of Schreker's style would directly influence the sound of classic Hollywood movie music ) .
Director Ian Judge's production skillfully updates the opera's setting from Renaissance Genoa, Italy, to early 20th century Vienna, and is constantly visually arresting thanks to projection designer Wendall K. Herrington's sophisticated work that draws on neo-classical references and illustrations reminiscent of conceptual art for Disney animated films from the 1940s and '50s. Considering that Judge and his production team had to work within the limitations of a steep-angled stage already in place with Achim Freyer's concurrent production of Götterdämmerung, The Stigmatized is truly a technological example of how working with less can be more.
Conlon conducts a blazing performance that is sonically enchanting from start to finish. The singing ensemble is solid, particularly soprano Anja Kampe as the physically weak painter Carlotta Nardi and tenor Robert Brubaker who gives an agonized turn as hunchback artist Alviano Salvago.
What really undermines The Stigmatized is Schreker's own long-winded and confusingly Freudian libretto about a hunchback artist who creates a fantastical island that is exploited by six noblemen to kidnap and rape the city's upper-class daughters and wives.
Many of the main character's motivations are muddled logically and aggravatingly contradictory. Schreker's minor characters are also vastly underdeveloped and don't seem to contribute much at all to the plot.
It's unfortunate that such glorious orchestral music is wedded to such an unfulfilling and jumbled libretto. It's this aspect that will probably prevent The Stigmatized from finding a place in the standard operatic repertory. But at the very least we can be grateful that L.A. Opera gives modern audiences a chance to judge for themselves the merits of Schreker's long-suppressed work.
L.A. Opera's The Stigmatized continues 2 p.m. April 18 and 7:30 p.m. April 22 and 24 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand, Los Angeles ( just across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall ) . Tickets are $15-$125; call 213-972-8001 or visit www.laopera.com .
Back in Chicago
From one opera company performing adjacent to a Gehry-designed structure to another: Chicago Opera Theater ( COT ) opens its adventurous 2010 season this week with the first local performances of Rossini's Moses in Egypt ( Mosè in Egitto ) since 1863 at Millennium Park's Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
"Right now we're most concerned with how successfully we part the Red Sea at the end," said COT General Director Brian Dickie during a telephone interview. "Because when the opera was first done nearly 200 years ago, they screwed up the effect completely and it turned out to be a comedy because they made such a mess of it. I hope we do better."
Moses in Egypt is already a money-maker for COT, since it was the winner of the company's first "People's Opera" fundraising campaign in 2008 where patrons donated money to vote for an opera that they wanted COT to stage. More than $400,000 was raised.
The other two COT operas are both Chicago premieres: Cavalli's 1648 romantic comedy Giason ( or Jason, of the Argonauts fame ) and Jake Heggie's 2004 drama Three Decembers ( check back to this column for an interview with Heggie slated to run on May 5 ) . According to Dickie, Jason is the first professionally produced production of a Cavalli opera ever in Chicago, while Three Decembers is slated to be famed mezzo-soprano Fredericka Von Stade's final opera performances in Chicago before she retires.
COT's 2010 spring season consists of four performances each of Rossini's Moses in Egypt ( April 17-25 ) , Cavalli's Jason ( April 24-May 2 ) and Jake Heggie's Three Decembers ( May 8-16 ) , all performed at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph. ( There is also a gala concert called An Evening with Fredericka Von Stade and Jake Heggie at 7:30 p.m. May 10. ) Individual tickets to each opera are $30-$120. Weekend packages are available. Call 312-334-7777 or visit www.chicagooperatheater.org .
