Flirting with Fascism, Sinatra: ENO’s Rodelinda
I’d been away from London, in New York, for Rodelinda’s Coliseum premiere but heard such good things about it that I arranged for one of its last performances and am so glad I did. Beyond the grace of Handel’s music conducted by baroque specialist Christopher Curnyn and played with usual panache by a reduced English ...
Cherbourg umbrellas pop with panache, fifty years later
The delicious, the divine, the delectable and digitally restored, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, opens Friday at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles for a one-week big-screen viewing engagement. If you’ve not yet seen Jacques Demy’s candy-colored all-song French classic — yes, it’s an operetta à la française — on the big screen doing so at ...
Review: Danielle Agami’s “EXHIBITa” @ Celebrate Dance 2
Think of a Robert Crumb cartoon strip — in all its gnarly, grotesque glory. That roughly equates to watching the weird and wonderful foot-parade choreographer Danielle Agami sent across the Alex Theatre stage last night at the ninth annual “Celebrate Dance.” Agami’s “EXHIBITa,” chock-filled with witty movement invention in its Los Angeles premiere, offered the ...
Kosloff, unfurled
He worked for two of the greatest arts titans of the 20th century: Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev and Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille. After a long career as a silent movie actor, Theodore Kosloff made his final film appearance in DeMille’s “Madam Satan,” DeMille’s failed movie musical created on the cusp of the Depression. ...
Radio celebrates ballet man Theodore Kosloff
This cool guy is John Rabe. As host of KPCC-Pasadena’s “Off Ramp,” Rabe captures a mixed bag of hip stories in radio’s radiant realm as they tumble forth in the wee village of Los Angeles. This Saturday, March 8, at high noon, on 89.3 on your FM-radio dial [repeats Sunday 6 pm] Rabe’s “Off Ramp” ...
Guilty pleasure? No, guitar pleasure from masters Gismonti, Towner
I was needing to hear some music but the last days before trans-Atlantic travel were beyond hectic. Nothing was fitting. Couldn’t get over to the Coliseum for an opera opening; despite all desire couldn’t fit in that last Vengerov, but the soul was saying “You gots to do something..” Egberto Gismonti at the Barbican. How ...
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo plunges anew into “Swan Lake” 1
Mar
2
2014
“Not your grandmother’s ‘Swan Lake,'” quipped one dance pundit in anticipation of “LAC,” choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot‘s revisiting of ballet’s sacred cow — correction: its beloved swan. “LAC,” c’est le français for “lake.” The production by Les Ballets de Monte Carlo will enjoy its U.S. premiere next weekend on the stellar stage of Segerstrom Center for the ...
“Twin Visions” Witkin brothers @ Jack Rutberg Fine Arts
Mar
2
2014
An immensely intriguing exhibition pairing the creative output of two brothers, identical twins, both fine artists one expressing himself in oil paint, the other through photography, has just opened at the LaBrea Avenue gallery of arts·meme friend Jack Rutberg. The show examines the mysteries of art from a new perspective, by adding a clever inquiry ...
Getting back to Ballet Black
Now in its 13th shoestring-budgeted season Ballet Black’s chamber ballet company of eight has a reputation of performing far beyond its weight class. Its current mixed program, performed at Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House, continues in kind. The creation of young Trinidadian-British Cassa Pancho to provide role models to aspiring young dancers ...
The ultimate Murray Perahia recital
In any great concert hall on the planet, this singular program with pianist Murray Perahia would be astonishing. At the height of his powers and maturity, he is one of our greatest living pianists. Perahia will perform Thursday evening at the Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge, described by architecture critic Michael Webb ...