Dancing lady
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.
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.
The right box
Let’s call this meeting to order. My name is Patrick and I’m a boxset-aholic.
Comedy on the Calais Coach
Friday night Music Director James Conlon sold Die Entfürhung aus dem Serial to a tony crowd of Angelenos.
Gold rush
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.
Diva, unfiltered
How many books have been published about Anna Maria Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou Meneghini Callas, great operatic goddess of the dark arts?
It’s about this town
L.A. Opera offered an inspired concert staging of Leonard Bernstein’s musical-comedy bouquet to New York, Wonderful Town.
Teeny furniture
Sony Classical has now released “Leontyne Price Prima Donna Assoluta” containing nearly her entire operatic oeuvre in a box set.
Comeback thane
The characters get right down to work immediately with their foul deeds.
The upper depths
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is a pearl itself and this presentation proffers some of the best that company has to offer.
Going Hollywood
The Hollywood Bowl is truly the preeminent musical venue in Los Angeles.
Snow business
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.
Site unseen
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.
To live and die (with honor) in L.A.
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.
La lune est encore sur la mer
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.
Out there in the dark
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.
Every little thing she does is magic
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.
Everytime we say goodbye
Gather around while I play Ghost of New Year’s Eve past!
Ardori inospiti
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.
Gli enigmi sono due
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.
The rite stuff
Remember that time you went to the opera and the entire evening was perfection?
Consider the subtleness of the sea
Hopefully the assignment of Herman Melville’s endless whaling opus Moby-Dick as compulsory reading for High School students is a thing of the past.
Lady on demand
If you had told me 20 years ago that at some point in the future I would have over 550 of the Metropolitan Opera’s performances, audio and video, at my command with the touch of a button I would say my eulogy had just been read and I’d been taken to my reward.
Fifty shades of Domingo
LA Opera opened their 30th season with a pairing of two of their most popular productions, both of which were initially staged by filmmakers not unfamiliar with the vagaries of our industry outpost here in Hollywoodland.
Worth the candle
One of the glorious perks of my job, which is selling luxury cruises, is that on a semi-occasional basis I get to sample the wares myself—purely from an educational standpoint, mind you.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
