Category Archives: A Little Night Music

Ringlets They knew how to do things then. Opening night, 1938, at the Hollywood Bowl consisted of nothing less than Wagner’s Die Walküre, four hours plus, with Valkyries on horseback careening down the verdant nearby hills. The legendary Maria Jeritza … Continue reading →

Dorrance Stalvey, who single-handedly planned, directed and managed the Monday Evening Concerts at L.A. County Museum of Art since 1971, died Sunday at 75, after a yearlong illness, while the following words were being written. His passing, while not unexpected, … Continue reading →

Britten as Written Considering that Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw for Collier’s Weekly, a popular fiction magazine in 1898 as it was until its demise some 60 years later, his ghost story has borne the weight of … Continue reading →

WORDS BECOME MUSIC The sound of Frances-Marie Uitti’s cello resonates in the bloodstream. She would have it so; she has devoted considerable time and effort to enhancing the seductive throb of her instrument – developing a cello with six strings, … Continue reading →

Photo by Kenneth Ian PolakoffSITE NON-SPECIFICTrust the Long Beach Opera as time-and-place travelers. Not so long ago the company asked us to accept a transplant of Richard Strauss’ blood-drenched Elektra from sun-swept Grecian isles to the doom-haunted shores of Malibu. … Continue reading →

Photo by Tre VorleightonANTONIN, FRANZ AND RUDI Two clarinets entwine around a soft arpeggio, and Antonin Dvorák’s F-major Symphony (No. 5 by modern listing, formerly No. 3) is under your skin before you feel its soft touch. No symphony makes … Continue reading →

It happened on another 9/11 – 2000, to be exact. Tenor-superior Plácido Domingo, the L.A. Opera’s newly anointed artistic director, called a press conference, and the freeloaders were all there to sip the opera company’s coffee and sample Domingo’s pie-in-the-sky. … Continue reading →

Photos by Robert MillardFADED NOBILITY The critics were all over town last week – dance, theater, music – convening with their self-importance in full array, convoking their endless panel discussions (I led one), checking out what Los Angeles had to … Continue reading →

Amor, Amor . . . The Liebersons have spent the week with us, and we are the better for it. Peter Lieberson is the son of Goddard, who in his day was one of music’s authentic heroes. Goddard Lieberson was … Continue reading →

A HOLLOW RING The news had begun to circulate over the weekend, so that by Monday night the crowd at the County Museum for the EAR Unit season’s final concert was considerably larger than usual. The news involved decisions by … Continue reading →