Patrick Mack
W.C. Fields used to have a funny trope about in show business you should never work with children or animals. To that list should perhaps be added the soprano Anna Netrebko.
By Patrick Mack
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Not a few eyebrows arched on social media when L.A. Opera appropriated the hashtag “Fight like a girl” on street level poster adverts all over town for the revival of their 2013 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.
By Patrick Mack
Mr. Fabiano proceeded to pour gasoline over the audience and toss a lit match into the crowd with his rendition of “Granada.”
By Patrick Mack
Saturday night the Los Angeles Opera threw itself a party.
By Patrick Mack
Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann has had a bumpy ride to its pride of position in the current French repertoire.
By Patrick Mack
I entered the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Saturday night for LA Opera’s 30 year old revival of their production of Salome with a combination of enthusiasm and apprehension.
By Patrick Mack
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
By Patrick Mack
Friday night Music Director James Conlon sold Die Entfürhung aus dem Serial to a tony crowd of Angelenos.
By Patrick Mack
Now we find Mariella Devia, a diva held in near mythic regard due to her vocal longevity, with competing videos of two of her performances that were released, literally, on the same day.
By Patrick Mack
How many books have been published about Anna Maria Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou Meneghini Callas, great operatic goddess of the dark arts?
By Patrick Mack
L.A. Opera offered an inspired concert staging of Leonard Bernstein’s musical-comedy bouquet to New York, Wonderful Town.
By Patrick Mack
Sony Classical has now released “Leontyne Price Prima Donna Assoluta” containing nearly her entire operatic oeuvre in a box set.
By Patrick Mack
The characters get right down to work immediately with their foul deeds.
By Patrick Mack
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is a pearl itself and this presentation proffers some of the best that company has to offer.
By Patrick Mack
The Hollywood Bowl is truly the preeminent musical venue in Los Angeles.
By Patrick Mack
Los Angeles saw the first U.S. performance of Giacomo Puccini’s snow-dusted weeper in 1897 just a year after the young Toscanini led the prima in Turin.
By Patrick Mack
Giuseppe Verdi was so unhappy with the first production of his Giovanna d’Arco at La Scala in 1845 that he swore an oath to himself that he would never entrust that theatre with a prima again.
By Patrick Mack
Los Angeles first saw Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly presented at the Mason Opera House downtown in 1908 by the English Grand Opera Company. Rumors that LA Opera Artistic Director Placido Domingo portrayed Cio-Cio San’s little boy in that production remain unsubstantiated.
By Patrick Mack
There was a general feeling of homecoming in the hall on Friday evening in anticipation of what promised to be a special return visit on many levels.
By Patrick Mack
The revival of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Music Center downtown, last seen at LA Opera in 2013, is reason for jubilation for everyone except perhaps the singers engaged.
By Patrick Mack
Ms. Guy goes into detail about what made Sills a “magic” performer, recounting reactions of people across an extraordinarily broad socio-economic spectrum who discovered their love of opera and singing through her.
By Patrick Mack
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
By Patrick Mack
The most recent Egyptian voluptuary of 2006 by our friend Franco has now been replaced by the most singularly spartan production of Verdi’s masterpiece I think I’ve ever seen.
By Patrick Mack
Giacomo Puccini’s final opus interruptus is and shall always remain my favorite opera. The reasons for this preference are so varied and numerous that if they were printed and bound the volume would most assuredly require its own stand.
By Patrick Mack
