Category Archives: A Little Night Music

Powder Keg Powder Her Face is an arrogant young man’s masterpiece, fearless and forthright. Its central character – the decrepit, decaying Duchess of Argyle, fornicating her way toward oblivion – is one in a grand line of operatic monsters from … Continue reading →

Nothing More Than . . . The past few weeks have made their mark on my critical apparatus. Johannes Brahms has been his usual nasty scold. Richard Strauss has gone on a rant and a screech. A cadence in a … Continue reading →

Battle of the Brands At Disney Hall, the conductorless chamber orchestra known as Orpheus performed its brand of Mozart against that of the pianist Emanuel Ax; they did not match. Orpheus, which is popular for the same reasons that attract … Continue reading →

The Mystery Kid The young man – the slender, bespectacled, smiling schoolboy – strode to the Disney Hall podium, took his bow, turned to the orchestra. His gestures were modest, sure and eloquent; the curves and pulses of Mozart’s Figaro … Continue reading →

A Broken Vow Brett Dean and his music burst rather politely upon the local scene over the past two weeks. Australia born, with several seasoning years as a violist with the Berlin Philharmonic and now a full-time composer back home, … Continue reading →

The Ring? Wrongly Rung The performance annals of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung abound in tales of solemn ritual, of audiences driven to ecstasy thousands at a time, of published philosophical analyses by the ream. To George Bernard Shaw’s Perfect … Continue reading →

Zero Decibels About an hour before the start of the Philharmonic’s subscription season on September 29, a friend and I were ushered into the empty Disney Concert Hall by an orchestra official. My friend had never seen the hall; I, … Continue reading →

Best Fiddler’s Friend Down the pathway beside the house on the West L.A. hillside, past the red door and down the steps, Kyozo Watanabe sits surrounded by bright, gleaming, brand-new stringed instruments: s, violas, cellos, perhaps a few double basses … Continue reading →

Gloria in Excelsis The crowd at Zipper Hall last Tuesday night, for the first of this season’s “Piano Spheres” concerts, was one of those spectacles that renew your confidence in the future of energetic, serious musical programming. These concerts have … Continue reading →

To Hell With Perfection Don Carlo is Verdi’s Everest, its peak shrouded, unattainable, magnificent. The Los Angeles Opera’s current version, at the Music Center through October 1, handily measures the company’s emergence as a major performing force since its previous … Continue reading →