Concert and opera reviews from Southern California.
The greatly expanded orchestra featured four flutes, eight horns, two harps, an assortment of percussion, including a celeste, cowbells and a gigantic purpose-built sledgehammer…
Read MoreMehta’s account of Mahler First Symphony after the intermission was unlike any I have heard, with its insertion of the “Blumine” movement between the first and second.
Read MoreIn March, Zubin Mehta returned to L.A. to conduct Mahler Third and Symphonie fantastique. Joining him were German contralto Gerhild Romberger, Puerto Rican soprano Sophia Burgos and boy soprano Sebastian Dolinar…
Read MoreSpanish violinist María Dueñas played like a force of nature and with a winning smile, even after she broke the strings on her Strad…
Read Morethe main feature of this performance, a video projection of animated objects – some lifelike, some obstract – that interacted with the two soloists as they explored the narratives and dreamlike state of their songs.
Read MoreMTT favored a more astringent sound and clarity of details, but still achieved the same noble and grand results...
Read MoreIt wasn’t until the “Great” Symphony No. 9 that maestro Dudamel became completely in tune with Schubert, achieving a fine sense of balance between relaxed joie de vivre and bursts of intensity.
Read MoreFifteen years after its first visit to the Southland, the Berliners gave a déjà vu performance of undiminished power and brilliance more than a decade later.
Read MoreThroughout the 30-minute-long movement, the main Lebewohl/Farewell motif went through a wealth of emotions in the strings, from yearning to poignant to defiant.
Read MoreMr. Salonen still leads exciting performances on the podium, but the old romantic varnish has been replaced by a deepening sense of modern cynicism
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