In 2007, Los Angeles Opera launched an outreach project that has turned into an annual tradition: The company took over the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and staged Britten's "Noah's F…
Los Angeles Opera is a Mozart house, as any world-class house would be, and over three decades, the company has staged all of the genius' seven major operas except one. James Conlon, the com…
The name Gaechinger Cantorey might strike Baroque music enthusiasts as a typo. In fact, as of this season, it is the new spelling of Gaechinger Kantorei, the pioneering choral group founded …
The headline on the concert tickets and on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's website read "Mirga Conducts Mozart and Haydn." The usual safe practices of marketing are responsible for that, but …
An awful lot of Brahms has been performed around town lately for no particular reason, and Christoph Eschenbach " fresh off a local appearance last month with the touring Bamberg Symphony " …
Very few works can claim to have launched a trend, but John Adams' "Nixon in China" certainly can. A wag called it "CNN Headline Opera," a somewhat pejorative tag that didn't stick. But the …
The musical path of Lang Lang continues to zigzag all over the place. The 34-year-old Chinese pianist released a concept album last September called "New York Rhapsody" in which he mostl…
Walt Disney Concert Hall looked almost full Thursday night, suggesting that some of Bramwell Tovey's loyal Hollywood Bowl following may have followed him to downtown L.A. for his gig ther…
Sometimes it takes time for a concert to settle in and become interesting. Such was the case at the joint recital of violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Robert Levin on Wednesday night in …
Far from contemplating retirement, Renée Fleming is busy pursuing esoteric ideas away from the opera stage. Audiences can only hope there will be more to come like the unusual program that …
Michael Feinstein opened his fourth season as principal conductor of the Pasadena Pops on Saturday night pretty much the way he opened his first season in 2013. The specific theme may have b…
Did it ever occur to film and theater director Herbert Ross that his 1993 production of Puccini's "La Bohème" for Los Angeles Opera "Â his first of an opera for anyone " would endure so f…
In May 2014, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming flew into town to help Domingo's Los Angeles Opera close the 2013-14 season. The unwary might have thought that the two superstars were goi…
Los Angeles Opera's journey through playwright Pierre Beaumarchais' Figaro trilogy opened with John Corigliano's expansion of Part 3 of the story, "The Guilty Mother," in "The Ghosts of Vers…
Some of the greatest operas are also the most difficult to shove into a narrow category. Others have layer upon layer, which makes them endlessly fascinating.
When the Pasadena Pops quickly signed Michael Feinstein to be its principal Pops conductor in 2013 following the death of his predecessor, Marvin Hamlisch, it looked like a coup and a gamble.
For all of the attention lavished upon West Coast composers lately, one who has mostly escaped the net is Ernest Bloch.
Singer-pianist Michael Feinstein made his first appearance as principal pops conductor of the Pasadena Pops on Saturday night at the L.A. County Arbortetum — and thereby hangs a tale.
While the proposed “subway to the sea” may be decades away if it ever comes, Los Angeles Opera isn’t waiting for it to happen. Â
Los Angeles Opera wheeled into its final three performances of Rossini’s “Cinderella” Wednesday night with a new Cinderella toiling amid her cadre of lovable, helpful rats.…
Los Angeles Opera’s indefatigable music director, James Conlon, always has something provocative or insightful to say, both in his pre-opera lectures and in his program notes. In the c…