Concert and opera reviews from Southern California.
In transcribing Mr. Zvulun’s operatic staging to the Pacific Symphony’s concert stage, director Gregory Luis H. Boyle admitted having to redesign the video projections and the sets, but keeping the same costume and storytelling concept.
Read MoreThe hall on day 1 was decked out with lavish floral extravaganza, and on day 2 with giant poster boards of the Golden Hall (Musikverein), home of the VPO, and no flowers or fancy ball gowns.
Read MoreLim, who is 20, brought remarkable maturity to the music-making, tackling its technical demands with apparent ease while finding fresh nuances in this familiar work.
Read MorePatricia Kopatchinskaja was the soloist for the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1. Her idiosyncratic, barefooted, neurotic manner of playing is by now familiar to her followers (and detractors).
Read MoreClaire Huangci was the pianist for Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. Her virtuoso playing showed tremendous youthful enthusiasm and energy, at the same time engaging in subtle dialog with the orchestra.
Read MoreThe Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa presented a concert staging of Verdi’s popular Rigoletto. The direction, by the Met’s staff director Kathleen Smith Belcher, is effective and generally faithful to the composer’s own staging instructions.
Read MoreThe superlative playing of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was evident from the first bars of Beethoven’s Seventh. The strings sounded full, warm and rich with the double-basses providing a firm foundation.
Read MoreSeated face-to-face across two pianos placed side by side, the two sisters showed an extraordinary and satisfying rapport, in their dialogs and their ability to finish each other’s sentences instinctively.
Read MoreThe 38-year-old pianist, hailing from Ukraine by way of Italy, is an estimable artist possessing a forceful, sparkling right hand and a supremely lyrical left hand…
Read MoreMarco Barricelli could not erase the memory of F. Murray Abraham; nonetheless, he managed to inject some semblance of humanity into the Hollywood caricature of Salieri’s character.
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