Patrick Mack
Patrick Mack starting listening to opera as a teenager to the total bewilderment of his rock and roll mother. He sang leading roles in the opera departments of Santa Monica College and UCLA and for two years in the Baltimore Symphony Chorus. In 2003 he joined the tenor section of The Verdi Chorus which has been giving young singers paid performance opportunities for over 30 years. He has served on their Board of
Directors since 2012 and handles their publicity, marketing, and Facebook page. Patrick is a luxury cruise consultant with All-Travel in
Los Angeles and was honored as one of the Top 25 Travel Agents in the country in 2015 by Travel Agent Magazine. Having weaned himself from an
early age on the musical opinions of Andrew Porter in the New Yorker, he has been wielding the critics pen on Parterre.com since 2011.
His singing of the national anthem has never failed to impress those standing closest to him at any public event he attends.
When LA Opera finally decided to put a toe in the water and mount its first production since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was Igor Stravinsky‘s opera/oratorio Oedipus Rex.
By Patrick Mack
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This solid if not stellar performance finds our diva in particularly passionate form. Maybe they should have re-titled it Maddalena?
By Patrick Mack
Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West may have its detractors (Stravinsky referred to it as a “horse-opera’) but you will not find me among them.
By Patrick Mack
I still remember, and some of it quite vividly, what it was like to experience Achim Freyer‘s intense and groundbreaking Ring production all these years later.
By Patrick Mack
This video recording of Il trovatore is sensational for all the right and wrong reasons simultaneously.
By Patrick Mack
Mr. Wilson’s production concept, according to his liner notes, has more to do with Paris at the time of the premiere and a “world of memory” than it does with the storytelling of civil war in medieval Spain.
By Patrick Mack
Robert Wilson is many things: a visionary (certainly); an iconoclast, artist, director, and designer of sets, lighting, costumes, movement (and furniture). Yet his work is never boring (well, at least not intentionally).
By Patrick Mack
On the first viewing of this Idomeneo, with a cast clad mostly in military khaki green set against a green sky, the eye starts to tire from the dullness of the surroundings.
By Patrick Mack
Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana has always been a particular favorite, although I’ve only seen it staged once (and that by an amateur company the details of which I share spare you all, save to note that dinner was served during the performance.)
By Patrick Mack
With most of us dug in for the duration, there’s no better time to tuck into a CD box set of neglected treasures. Not that I needed an excuse, mind you.
By Patrick Mack
For those of you keeping track at home that’s four substitutions for three roles and the curtain hasn’t even gone up yet.
By Patrick Mack
A special program note for Saturday night’s performance of Matthew Aucoin’s new opera Eurydice pointed to a rare convergence of three MacArthur Grant fellows in its creation and staging.
By Patrick Mack
We’ve had a mini-fest of director Barrie Kosky’s work this year at LA Opera.
By Patrick Mack
On a new Opus Arte video, Ermonela Jaho is at the absolute peak of her powers both vocally and interpretively.
By Patrick Mack
Sunday evening Los Angeles Opera presented tenor Javier Camarena in recital to a wildly enthusiastic audience from the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
By Patrick Mack
An opera company presenting a Broadway musical that centers around a woman of a certain age travelling to Italy with her young daughter might seem more a vehicle for a great diva of a certain age.
By Patrick Mack
I’m certain I wasn’t the only one thrilled to bits to see LA Opera’s production of La Bohème finally retired after 26 years and seven mountings.
By Patrick Mack
L’Italiana in Algeri‘s appearance at the Salzburg Festival should be no surprise since Ceciila Bartoli has been the intendant of the Whitsun Festival extension at Salzburg since 2012.
By Patrick Mack
While Luciano Pavarotti may have brought opera to the people, once he realized how lucrative it could be, there was a string of promoters who helped him turn all that adoration into cold hard cash.
By Patrick Mack
Michael Fabiano is a boss. This is a fact.
By Patrick Mack
La Traviata offered a cast of fresh debutantes and an uncommonly strong musical performance that could hardly be bettered.
By Patrick Mack
As you can imagine, oaths are sworn, curses are flung with avidity, and a mysterious shepherd sings a tune of foreboding from a distant mountain gorge just when you’d expect it.
By Patrick Mack
Russell Thomas’s opening aria, “Del piu sublime soglio” displayed an intense attention to the text and some surprisingly beautiful piano phrasing that I’ve never heard risked before and it brought wonder and gooseflesh.
By Patrick Mack
Saturday night I navigated the Music Center concourse, or what’s left of it with it’s seemingly eternal construction to the main plaza, wending my way to the Dorothy Chandler for the opening night of LA Opera’s Hansel and Gretel.
By Patrick Mack
