RhetOracle Dance Company / photo copyright Tim Agler Celebrate Dance 2009

Celebrate Dance returns to the Alex Theatre in Glendale for its fifth-anniversary show this Saturday, March 13, at 8 p.m. The festival celebrates the vibrance and diversity of our local dance community by showcasing nine Southland companies in a single evening of performance that received the Lester Horton Award for Outstanding Achievement for a Festival in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and has sold out for the past two years.

Curious about the show’s tremendous success and unique scope, I recently spoke with executive producer, curator, arts advocate, and LA dance guru Jamie Nichols. Former director of the Pasadena-based dance company Fast Feet for 23 years, Nichols knows the LA dance community from the inside and celebrates its tenacity and resourcefulness in making excellent work with scarce funding and creating venues out of restaurants and warehouses when theater space is in short supply or beyond financial reach. Understanding these challenges firsthand, Nichols has, for each of the past five years, put up personal funds and sought out private donors in order to offer the area’s finest companies the opportunity to perform in a fully produced, beautifully lit, well-publicized concert at Glendale’s 1,400-seat Alex Theatre. And she even manages to pay everyone.

Nichols believes “a spirit of graciousness,” or support for one another’s work, can help the LA dance community thrive. And she sets a remarkable example by going to see performances by anyone who invites her. It’s this spirit that has led her to discover such remarkable artists as Esther Baker-Tarpaga and Olivier Tarpaga, the duo that thrilled audience members at Celebrate Dance 2008, and to offer the visibility that has helped propel their international career.

This year’s eclectic lineup features returning companies as well as new faces; premieres and award-winning, re-staged works; contemporary ballets, aerial dance, jazz, acrobatic encounters with moving sets, and moving explorations of relationship. Look for new additions including Catch Me Bird and Body Current Dance, directed by Lorin Johnson, former American Ballet Theatre dancer. Also, past Celebrate Dance favorites JazzAntiqua Dance and Music Ensemble and RhetOracle Dance Company will present new jazz works that promise to captivate.

If the last two years are any indication, you’d better get your tickets now. Visit Celebrate Dance on the Alex Theatre’s website for more information and a video sneak preview. Tickets range from $17 to $35, and discounts for seniors, students, Glendale residents and Dance Resource Center members are available with presentation of ID at the Alex Theatre box office. Discounted tickets for groups of 15 or more are available by calling the box office at (818) 243-2539.

Photo by Leo Garcia

When Trisha Brown and her fellow dance rebels of the 1960s and ’70s began using movement “scores” – directions that require performers to solve problems in the moment of performance – in lieu of “set” choreography, the shift was both aesthetic and political. By redistributing the choreographer’s power of artistic decision to the dancers, scores encouraged audiences to see performers as thinking community members and to question the authority of the art establishment. In 2010, however, when the score is an established choreographic device and Brown represents, willy-nilly, the present dance establishment, it’s hard to imagine the revolutionary spirit this method once carried.

In Bricklayers With a Sense of Humor, performed this past Saturday at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Arianne Hoffmann continues the work of this breakaway dance generation by challenging the authority of the now-conventional movement score, reinvigorating the form with political significance, and re-asserting the power and responsibility of the performer. Inside a series of scores that govern with varying degrees of control, Hoffmann and her fellow movers discover, struggle, delight, suffer, resist, obey, and rebel to thrilling and unsettling ends. While the most restrictive scores yield intriguing results – by giving the performers a clear force to push against – the success of even these sections depends on the movers’ individual decisions. The performers’ willingness to stretch or break out of each structure when necessary ensures both artistic interest and the well-being of the group.

From the very first score, the stakes are high and the problems are real. “It certainly is harder to breathe.” Hoffmann narrates her sensations from the bottom of an ever-growing pig pile, with understated humor and concern that builds with the number of bodies on her back. We chuckle nervously as she allows four movers to climb on before panic creeps into her voice: “I’m having trouble speaking, and it makes me think it’s too much … pressure.” The women immediately peel themselves off in response to her alarm, and our breathing deepens with hers.

Recalling Trisha Brown’s “line up” experiments, these bricklayers – in brown, red and powder blue polyester shirts tucked into high-waisted bell-bottoms – negotiate individual power as they seek to maintain their equidistant arrangement in a sideways-facing horizontal line. Steps taken by the women on the ends trigger a flurry of checking and correcting in the middle. But then Rebecca Pappas has had enough and holds her ground with a solid fist raised at Audrey Malone’s back. This resistance seems to fuel Malone’s fire, and she raises a fist to stop Angeline Shaka from invading her space. The battle of wills eventually rams them all into a heap against the wall … a much more glorious end than the initial calibrations suggested!

Tehya Baxter emerges from the wreckage, performing a regimented hand dance and parading through the space with clear paces and sharp quarter turns to the tubas and trumpets of the Ex-Post-Communist Community Brass and String Bands. Her focused, blank stare breaks now and then to flash us a wide, forced smile. Contrast this controlled march – disturbing in its lack of individual choice or expression – with Hoffmann’s sprawling solo danced with a microphone in her pants. This woman enjoys her personal freedoms.

At first it’s just a game: Ally Voye tries to stand her ground while Audrey Malone tries to push her over. But soon this score leads to the violation of individual freedoms and bodily rights. Malone’s efforts grow violent, and Voye’s pinched face and flailing arms betray real distress, until she collapses to the ground. Malone panics because this noncompliance keeps her from following the directions, and she yells at Voye’s lifeless body – trying insult, mockery, and coercion to get her up off the floor. When the others enter and conduct sound experiments on Voye’s insensible form, digging a microphone into her belly and manipulating her legs to produce muffled thumps, it’s awful to watch, and it looks like the decision to break from this score might fall to the audience. A performance has never brought me so close to taking action, and this might be the work’s greatest tribute to Hoffmann’s predecessors.

Maestro James Conlon

This weekend, James Conlon is leading the LA Phil in a series of all-Prokofiev concerts, including the Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, the “Classical Symphony”; the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat major, Op. 10; and selections from “Romeo and Juliet.”

The concert on Saturday night began a little late not just because of the rain, but perhaps also because Maestro Conlon, who is Music Director of LA Opera, spoke at the pre-concert Upbeat Live and didn’t finish until 10 minutes before he was scheduled to conduct the performance.

But fatigue was nowhere to be found in Conlon’s demeanor as he bounded on stage and launched into an up-tempo and muscular version of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1. Prokofiev’s “Classical Symphony” is so named (by the composer himself) because it was composed in the style of Haydn. But although the style of the work and the scoring (e.g., two flutes, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, horns, strings and timpani) may be Haydnesque, Conlon’s performance was pure Beethoven. Conlon ripped into the score with alacrity and volume, true to the fortissimo marking at the beginning of the first movement, Allegro, which sounded even louder in Disney Hall.

Conlon’s version of the “Classical Symphony” brought cheers from the audience, and the energetic performance, along with Conlon’s own energy, provided a successful antidote to any fatigue in audience members from driving in L.A. traffic in the rain.

The second piece on the program, Prokoviev’s Piano Concerto No. 1, was played brilliantly by the 21-year-old French soloist, Lise de la Salle. Although she appeared slightly awkward walking on stage and taking bows after her performance (perhaps not so unusual for a 21-year-old), there was nothing at all awkward about de la Salle at the piano. She demonstrated a power, range, and versatility that reminded one a little of the young Martha Argerich and which seemed all the more impressive because she sat so far back from the piano. She also did not display the emotionally expressive movements so popular with some of today’s soloists. But she did not need to; her playing spoke for itself.

As one might expect from an operatic conductor, Conlon expertly accompanied de la Salle both leading and following her at the appropriate times.

After intermission de la Salle could be seen with ticket in hand, looking for her seat in the audience to hear the second half of the concert, only to find an interloper in her seat. After he cleared out and she sat down, she was greeted by nearby patrons with handshakes and praise for her playing.

After walking on stage for the second half, Conlon proved he wasn’t finished talking. He grabbed a cordless microphone and described how he “stole” sections from each of the three suites of orchestral music from the ballet score Prokofiev wrote for “Romeo and Juliet” so that the selections told the story from beginning to end.

Not only is Prokofiev’s score a modern masterpiece, but the orchestra under Maestro Conlon rendered it masterfully with numerous stand-out solos by the LA Phil principals, including Concertmaster Martin Chalifour, Associate Principal Cellist Daniel Rothmuller, Principal Violist Carrie Dennis, and Principal Oboist Arianna Ghez, all of whom garnered the most cheers from the audience during their solo bows.

Conlon used all the superb musical resources of the LA Phil and Disney Hall to evoke the emotional highs and lows of Prokofiev’s score. And at the quiet conclusion of the last section, “Death of Juliet,” Maestro Conlon was able to maintain perfect silence from the audience by holding his left hand in the air for at least 10 seconds before letting it drop to the cheers of the audience.

The concert repeats today (Sunday, March 7) at 2 p.m.

St. Mathew Passion

The Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall / photo by Steve Cohn, courtesy of LAMC

The Los Angeles Master Chorale, Musica Angelica, and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus will join together for a much-anticipated performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, played for the first time in Disney Hall.

The Master Chorale always shines, and this event will be special with featured soloists Pablo Cora as the Evangelist and Steve Pence as Jesus.  They are joined by sopranos Tamara Bevard and Deborah Mayhan; altos Kristen Toedtman, Adriana Manfredi and Leslie Inman; tenor Jon Lee Keenan; and baritone Abdiel Gonzales.

Musica Angelica, one of the most distinguished of Los Angeles’ Early Music ensembles, will be performing on period instruments in their third appearance with the choir in four years.  They are noted for their informed sound.  The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, founded in 1986, and led by Artistic Director Anne Tomlinson, is recognized coast to coast.  Gershon said of the concert that “it is an honor to be the first person to conduct Bach’s famed work in Disney Hall.”

Sunday, March 7, 7 p.m.
(Listen Up! pre-concert talk with Grant Gershon and KUSC’s Alan Chapman, 6 p.m.)

Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., LA

Tickets: $19 – $124; student rush seats available at box office two hours before the performance. For ticket information, call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can only be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office on concert days starting two hours prior to the performance.)

Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series

Tuesday we find the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group with trumpeter Brandon Ridenour, the voice of Timur Bekbosunov, and the fabulous Calder Quartet conducted by Gregory Vajda.

The composers on the program are a teacher-student pair.  Lithuanian Vykintas Baltakas (b. 1972) caught the attention of his mentor Peter Eötvös while working together at the Hungarian composer’s International Institute and at the Music Academy in Karlsruhe.  The scheduled works include Baltakas’ (co)ro(na), and three by Eötvös: Snatches of a Conversation, with Timur Bekbosunov (speaker) and Brandon Ridenour (trumpet); Korrespondenz, played by the Calder Quartet; and Sonata per Sei.

Baltakas conducted the world premiere of (co)ro(na) in 2005.  Expect a shock from his orchestration of piccolo E-flat clarinet, soprano saxophone, and piccolo trumpet in their upper registers.

Snatches of a Conversation (2001) is the title work on Eötvös’ BMC disc Snatches.  The work calls for a speaker reading nonsensical words and syllables (in English) from a notated part, which, Eötvös writes, is “to be whispered into the microphone, in somewhat voiced sounds.”  Tenor Bekbosunov from Kazakhstan has built his reputation as an interpreter of contemporary music.

Eötvös writes that Korrespondenz depicts the drama between Leopold Mozart and his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The first violin and viola represent Wolfgang Mozart and the second violin and cello give his father’s side of the correspondence.  Can the Calder Quartet relate to the theme?  I expect we’ll hear.

Sonata per Sei is written for two pianos, a sampler-keyboard, and three percussionists, and was premiered at the International Bartók Festival in July 2006. The composer writes that he has “developed a few of Bartók’s ideas and ways of thinking, in particular his fondness for parallel runs in octaves, sixths, or other intervals.”

Tuesday, March 9, 8 p.m.
Veronika Krausas, composer and professor at the USC Thornton School of Music, will speak at the Upbeat Live pre-concert talk at 7 p.m.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., LA
Tickets: $51, $34, $26.

For a comprehensive list of chamber music and other concerts, read Jim Eninger’s Clickable Chamber Music Newsletter.

Southwest Chamber Music

Southwest Chamber Music’s Ascending Dragon Festival opened this weekend with a set of three pre-tour concerts Friday, Saturday, and Monday.  I was able to hear the Monday, March 1, concert downtown at Zipper Hall, and left not only impressed by the ensemble and programming, but also enthused about the project generally and the fine events to come when the group returns from Vietnam next month.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was the teacher of Festival composers Nguyen Thien Dao (b. 1940) and Tôn Thât Tiêt (b. 1933), and this acknowledgement on the program served as an important cultural statement as they honor their teacher.

Tôn Thât Tiêt opened the program with the U.S. premiere of Đôi for bassoon and percussion.  His music, like Messiaen’s, was microtonal and filled with unorthodox multiphonic timbres and rhythmic tension.  Allen Savedoff was unflappable in his ability to control his bassoon as it ascended with an extended tortuous climb from the lowest depths of the instrument to the stratospheric extremes few musicians dare to sound. Lynn Vartan was exceptionally sensitive as she melded timpani, marimba, vibraphone, and ceremonial Southeast Asian gongs.  Her sounding of the Japanese temple bowl was ethereal and made for an effective ending.

Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” was worthy of its lofty title, and his brilliance was amplified because the Southwest Chamber Music players themselves were enchanted this evening. The opening glistened as Jim Foscia’s emotive clarinet was enveloped by an evanescent harmonic “halo of trills” played beautifully by violinist Lorenz Gamma and cellist Peter Jacobson.  Ming Tsu portayed Messiaen’s self-described “harmonies of heaven” with her piano’s “blue-orange chords.”  Foscia’s extended unaccompanied solo in “Abîme des Oiseaux” was without equal.  His control was astounding as he materialized the sound from literally nothing.  The sound arose as if it were vaporous, and he could fade into nothingness just as convincingly.  I have never heard such control; the effect was gripping. Jacobson was masterful in the fifth movement with his expansive, infinitely slow cello solo.  He carefully crafted each note, and the audience was overtly moved by its largess.

At the end of time, the night ultimately belonged to Gamma as he guided us to the promised sound with his expansive violin solo.  His slow ascent to the divine extreme was the high point of the evening.  Gamma was amazing; my eyes teared, my breath stilled.  The audience was briefly stunned.  Bravo!

The final work on the program was Tôn Thất Tiết’s “Les Jardins d’autre Monde,” scored for a nine-piece instrumental ensemble.  The piece was composed in memory of the city of Huế, the former capital of Vietnam, in which he writes about his strolls through the garden graves of the four emperors who reigned from the early 19th century until 1883, and how he imagined the music of their time.  The poignancy of this work playing in Hanoi later this month was not lost in Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt’s pre-concert talk.

The ensemble realized the mood and intentions of the composer, and the influence of Messiaen was easily discernable, especially in the parts of oboist Jonathan Davis and harpist Alison Bjorkedal.  The range of sounds that these two produced, both orthodox and otherwise, was astounding.

Adding substantially to the experience is the fact that Zipper Hall is an extraordinary chamber music space.  The advanced acoustical design is most effective, making it among the very best small ensemble performance venues in the city.  You can find better ambiance, but there are no other acoustics like these.

Look for the return of Southwest Chamber Music and the Ascending Dragon Festival and Cultural Exchange in April.

I saw the low-budget The Hurt Locker long before the mega-million-dollar 3D IMAX film, and when I left the theater I couldn’t imagine any other film being my Best Picture pick. I was right. All the special effects of Avatar, all the clever inventions, did not convince me otherwise — and I am a (secret, unconscious?) sci-fi fan (going back to the original Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Star Wars).

The Hurt Locker, about a bomb-disposal unit in Iraq, was an edge-of-your-seat thriller, especially when you think about the fact that war is not fiction and there are thousands of people facing danger and death every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. Director Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, a journalist who wrote the script after being embedded with a bomb unit in Iraq, captured the reality of the Iraq War, from the different psychological responses of the troops to the torture of thirst and the agonizing pace of time when the soldiers are ambushed in the desert to the horror of not knowing who the enemy is when anyone could be holding a bomb detonator. The character of Sgt. James, played masterfully by Jeremy Renner, is a fictionalized daredevil addicted to the adrenaline rush of facing his own mortality, but it has often been the experience of soldiers at war that there is no easy way to adjust to civilian life afterward. The movie opens with a quote from war correspondent Chris Hedges’ 2002 book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” (It reminded me of a great book, Michael Herr’s Dispatches, written in 1977 about the Vietnam War; it is fascinating and reads like fiction, which sadly it isn’t. Incidentally, Herr, also a war correspondent, co-wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.) I might add that it doesn’t matter if the film didn’t get all the details right, according to the military; it’s not a documentary and it still conveys truths of war. And it doesn’t matter that Bigelow is a woman either.

A great movie has many things, and Avatar just lacked some of the most important ones: like a great story and dialogue. You can’t cover that up with 3D animated dandelion fluff floating off the screen. You’d think if director James Cameron was going to spend more than a decade working on this magnum opus, he would have invested as much in the script as he did in the technology. I was ready to be dazzled by the imagery though. Yes, there were beautiful scenes like Pandora’s amazing floating mountains, creative and fascinating flora and fauna, and even some very cool futuristic technology evidenced in the space ships and the equipment on board. But the creative stuff was not above and beyond other films from decades ago, like say, Star Wars, or even Alien (both of which really had much more interesting creatures and developed characters). And there were plenty of questions that could have been more creatively answered: Why is the military still using helicopters and machine guns? Why did the military have to destroy the Na’vi “Hometree” to dig in the ground for (the stupidly named) unobtanium? Why are people still talking about problems with access to health care and references to the Iraq War in the year 2154? Wouldn’t we have moved on to other, similarly vexing issues sometime by, oh, I don’t know, 2020? Such elements emphasized the weaknesses of the story, which should have been infused with at least as much creativity as the animation.

I won’t even go into my personal tolerance level for 3D IMAX. Let’s just say that it doesn’t take a big budget to make the best film. In fact, exactly the opposite may be true most of the time.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed Avatar. But there was also some great cinematography in The Hurt Locker, like the slow-motion close-up of dirt and rocks flying in the air when a bomb detonates. It’s much more subtle, but that can be so much more artistic sometimes. And how can you be dazzled by the basically humanoid Na’vi and not that much more awestruck by learning that the Iraqis were using children’s dead bodies to house bombs. There was really some amazing work there that hit the heart and mind in a way unlike anything in Avatar.

Opera Buffs

On Feb. 27 at 2:30 p.m., I experienced one of the finest Opera Buffs Inc. Spring Performers Showcases to date. The singers were of the customary high caliber, and the theme was “Brush Up Your Shakespeare!,” which provided a delightful blending of art song, opera and show tunes. The program opened with “Orpheus With His Lute” from King Henry VIII by Vaughan Williams, sung by an artist to watch: Nick Zammit, a countertenor whose voice of exceptional beauty will represent the Western Region in the Metropolitan Opera Finals later this spring. Arias and scenes from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Verdi’s Otello and MacBeth were interrupted by excerpts from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate and an art song by Roger Quilter. The most humorous digression was “I Hate Men” sung by sopranos Jacquelynn Fontaine and Alexandra Loutsion, just after the latter’s heartrending performance of “Salce! Salce!” from Otello.The first half closed with “Si Colmi il Calice” from MacBeth, a strong ensemble selection featuring Loutsion and baritone Julian Arsenault.

The second half opened with “Wunderbar,” from Kiss Me Kate, featuring Loutsion and Arsenault. A touching performance of “Be Not Afeared” from Hoiby’s The Tempest, sung by tenor Yujoong Kim, followed. Fontaine and Zammit commenced a melodramatic rendering of “Ill Met by Moonlight” from Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, only to disrupt it with the observation that the audience was bored and glassy-eyed and wouldn’t we rather hear Zammit sing “Furibondo Spira il Vento” from Handel’s Partenope, which is quickly becoming his signature pyrotechnics aria. Truth be told, the audience was glad the program took this sudden turn. The next set from Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas, a French opera that has not yet come back into fashion, was the only sluggish point in the program. Besides the baritone aria, “O Vin, Dissipe la Tristesse” the soprano aria and ensuing duet, though beautifully sung by Fontaine and Arsenault, were unfamiliar and difficult to follow without translations. “Sing for Your Supper” from The Boys From Syracuse immediately picked up the pace again, and the concert closed with a strong duet from Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot which will be performed in its entirety at USC in April.

Kudos to Music Director and accompanist Mona Lands for wonderful programming. I appreciated Stage Director Michael Van Duzer’s clean, inventive staging. Thayer Hall at the Colburn School was an ideal venue, an appropriate size for a concert accompanied by piano. The Opera Buffs Inc. have supported and encouraged countless emerging artists, many who have gone on to successful careers. For information about upcoming events and news of their artists, visit www.operabuffs.org.

LA Opera

LA Opera's "The Festival Play of Daniel" / photo by Robert Millard, courtesy of LA Opera

A complete change of atmosphere and scope awaited me at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for LA Opera’s 7 p.m. performance of The Festival Play of Daniel: A Medieval Music Drama. The music and text are by anonymous 13th-century authors, and were orchestrated and translated by stage director Eli Villanueva. This pageant combined the talents of the Cathedral Choir, the Colburn’s Children’s Choir and Opera Workshop, Pueri Cantores San Gabriel Valley Children’s Choir, St. John Eudes Children’s Choir, St. John Eudes Adult Choir, members of the LA Opera Orchestra who served as principals in the orchestra, with the ensemble fleshed out by Hamilton High School Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra and the Colburn String Orchestra. Combine these talents under the baton of James Conlon with the fabulous solo artists and Acting and Dancing Ensemble, and you have a recipe for a thrilling performance. Eli Villanueva’s stage direction creatively utilized the various platforms, stairs, and aisles in the Cathedral. Even with such a large cast, I had no trouble following the story and characters. The costume design played an integral part in distinguishing the peasants from the royalty, the soldiers from the advisors.

Hak Soo Kim portrayed the title character with earnest sincerity and an expressive tenor. Yohan Yi gave a strong performance as King Belshazzar with his rich baritone and commanding presence. Tenor Robert MacNeil was regal as King Darius, with a pleasing clarity and ease to his tenor voice. Another soloist of note was Caleb Barnes, a young countertenor, who delivered the Prologue and closing Prophecy from an imposing costume incorporating stilts so he towered over the stage.

Not only do I congratulate LA Opera for reaching out to the community by offering free tickets to The Festival Play of Daniel, I also acknowledge the efforts to incorporate and coordinate several different organizations in this uplifting production. For information about future productions, visit www.laopera.com.

Center Stage Opera

It’s with mixed feelings I approach writing about my final experience of the weekend: Center Stage Opera’s production of Gounod’s Faust. First, let me say what an important place they have in the opera community in Southern California. There are so few places singers can gain the experience they need to launch an operatic career. Center Stage Opera performs with orchestra, sets, and costumes in the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park. As this was the first production I’ve seen in their five-year history, I can only address the strengths and weaknesses of the production as I saw it on Feb. 28, not knowing how far they may have come since their inception.

The principal cast was uneven. Adrien Roberts was the perfect voice for Marguerite. I only wish she could have sung with a different tenor. Josh Shaw as Faust was painful to listen to. The tenor has lost all the color of his voice, and in the upper range his vibrato – when he could get it going – is sluggish and a mile wide. Sarah-Nicole Ruddy stood out as Marthe, with natural physicality on stage that immediately draws your eye to her. I would love to see her in more substantial roles in the future. Luvi Avendano, also stood out in the part of Wagner, his stage presence and focused baritone distinguishing his character. I also enjoyed Raeeka Shehabi-Yaghmai in the youthful pants-role of Siebel. Arkeel Tamayo, although he has a pleasing baritone, pushed too much in the upper tessitura for Valentin. Phil Meyer was adequate in his Jeremy Irons persona of Mephistopheles. However, I’ve seen him in other productions and know that the director did not employ Meyer’s acting abilities to full advantage.

And that brings me to the main difficulties I had with the production. According to director Dylan Thomas’ notes, his concept for the show was “The Twilight Zone” television show. Which meant that the entire stage, sets, and costumes were in shades of black, white and gray. Some of the singers wore white makeup, but not all of the choristers did, which was visually distracting. The danger of this color scheme is that the look of the show starts out with all the lifeblood drained out of it. I believe a single, carefully chosen spot of color in each scene would have helped the look. For example, the flower Siebel plucks after dipping in holy water to cancel Mephistopheles’ curse could have been a vibrant red. The flowers presented to the Madonna could have had color, or perhaps a rosary window could have been projected on the back curtain in shades of red and blue. Having chosen “The Twilight Zone” as his theme, Thomas needed to choose a specific decade or year of that show and stick to a specific style for all the costumes. The inconsistent look detracted from the professionalism of the show.

The overall staging of the show needed more life. The production was far too static, with a limited vocabulary of gestures and ensemble configurations. The fight scene and death of Valentin were especially lifeless: the chorus stood around without reacting or responding. I found that the dancers were a distraction rather than an enhancement of the show; each time they came on I wondered why they were there. Their pas de deux during the Walpurgisnacht scene, in an attempt to tell the story of Marguerite and Faust’s affair, her pregnancy and murder of her baby, was frankly in poor taste.

While it is invaluable to give singers the experience of performing with an orchestra, I encourage Music Director and Conductor Brian Onderdonk to contract a stronger violin section. There were several frightening, exposed moments when the strings were not together. I want to encourage Center Stage Opera to keep on keeping on, and to choose one or two production values to improve upon for the Lucia di Lammermoor coming up in May. For more information, visit www.cutlurela.org/madridtheatre.

Dirty Projectors / photo by Sarah Cass, courtesy of LA Phil

When David Longstreth heard his music Saturday night (Feb. 27) at Walt Disney Concert Hall, his body reacted.  Deft toe tapping and a kind of rhythmic saunter embodied the swells and trills of The Getty Address, played in its entirety with the small orchestra of Alarm Will Sound.  The operatic and genre-dissolving 2005 album would serve as an oeuvre all by itself if Dirty Projectors, Longstreth’s Brooklyn-based ensemble, had ceased music-making that year.  (They didn’t, and 2009’s Bitte Orca reached the top tier of album reviews for publications like Pitchfork Media and TIME.)

The concert began with four pieces of music by the LA Philharmonic under the baton of Diego Matheuz, who, like LA Phil Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, studied in Venezuela’s El Sistema.  John Orfe performed two Ligeti etudes as if the piano were an extension of himself; between the etudes, an orchestral Wagner prelude from Tristan und Isolde hinted at the foreboding and resolution of Getty. Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite closed the first segment of the concert, and its adoption of various styles and attitudes into a coherent whole unlatched the mental gates that keep music in categories.

The Getty Address poured out soon after from baroque, opera, folk, epic poetry, and some new, strange, effective vocal style that involves vowels with one’s tongue out.  With Alan Pierson conducting the sizeable ensemble of Dirty Projectors and Alarm Will Sound, the sonic variety and mind-bending percussive precision of the album came to life.  A trio of vocalists — Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley Dekle in red, blue and yellow cloaks — struck complex harmonies with almost unsettling ease.  Deradoorian, in red, simultaneously managed a keyboard and computer.  Brian McOmber and Nat Baldwin provided heart-fluttering drums and bass.  Longstreth’s eyes darted from conductor to ensemble, from the trio’s rhythmic swaying to his own guitars; throughout, a live connection to the music kept him engaged almost to distraction.  As Alarm Will Sound colored in the landscape of The Getty Address, the captivated audience of young and old, American Apparel and Brooks Brothers, was energized and reverent, seeming to float away with the strings and jump to life with McOmber’s sudden entrances.

Pierson, it should be noted, conducted a wide-ranging and stylistically unprecedented group with ease.  The journey of Getty’s fictional protagonist Don Henley – “based more on my brother Jake, Hernán Cortes and also Stephen Dedalus from… Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” than on the Eagle frontman himself, says Longstreth – takes route through sleepy strings and driving rhythms, with vocals as unpredictable as they are perfectly suited to the concept.  “Ponds and Puddles,” mid-Getty, brings to mind the rock opera; “Finches’ Song at Oceanic Parking Lot,” which ends the journey, warbles its way past any such simple categorization.

Even in the recent evolution of cross-generic pastiche across the fine arts, Saturday night was a feat.  Longstreth’s work in Getty is a patchwork without seams.  Dirty Projectors, Alarm Will Sound, and the inimitable Alan Pierson filled the potential of genre defiance to its greatest capacity.  Furthermore, the already coherent work in Getty seemed all the more unified under a baton.

After multiple standing ovations from the packed hall, Dirty Projectors returned to the stage for a kind of chaser, calm selections from Bitte Orca.  Songs from the equally engaging if far less conceptual album served to showcase the band by itself.  The trio of women from Getty’s “chorus” continued to strike remarkable chords, McOmber and Baldwin filled in the counterintuitive rhythm, and Longstreth carried on his tiny dance of mini-conducting.

Upcoming events of similar genre-blending at Disney Hall include French electronic duo Air on March 28 and guitarist Pat Metheny’s new Orchestrionics tour on April 19. Visit www.laphil.com.

But, first, here are the March highlights of upcoming concerts featuring renowned guest conductors and soloists.

March Highlights

March comes in like a lion, beginning on Thursday, March 4, with a series of Prokofiev concerts conducted by James Conlon with pianist Lise de la Salle. The program includes the Symphony No. 1 “The Classical,” the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Suite from “Romeo and Juliet.” The program repeats on Saturday and Sunday, March 6 and 7.

Next on the calendar is a series of concerts directed by the Dutch conductor, Edo de Waart, who will lead the orchestra in two works, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the young Korean pianist Joyce Yang as soloist, and the Herculean “Ein Heldenleben” by Richard Strauss. The programs runs Friday through Sunday, March 12-14.

Thursday through Saturday, March 18-20, German pianist Lars Vogt, will perform the Grieg Piano Concerto with the orchestra under the direction of Robin Ticciati. Other works on the program include the “King Kristian Suite” by Sibelius and the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar. Vogt also performs a chamber music recital with members of the LA Phil on Tuesday, March 16, with works by Ravel and Elgar.

Then pianist and frequent Disney Hall visitor Emanuel Ax has a series of performances for a week, beginning on Tuesday, March 23, when he will perform a recital with famed soprano, and also frequent Disney Hall visitor, Dawn Upshaw. Ax will then join the young conductor, Lionel Bringuier, in the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Chopin Thursday through Saturday, March 25-27. The other major work on the program is the Shostakovich Symphony No. 6. Ax finishes out the week on Tuesday, March 30, when he joins members of the LA Phil in a recital of works by Janácek, Brahms, and Schumann.

For tickets and information, (323) 850-2000 or www.laphil.com.

Disney Hall Etiquette

It doesn’t matter how many musicians are onstage at Disney Hall, one person unwrapping a cough drop or flipping through a program can be completely distracting. Those sensitive acoustics that pick up every note onstage unfortunately also carry one person’s throat clearing to the entire audience’s ears. Disney Hall holds 2,265 people, and many concertgoers don’t realize that any noise they make can be heard by someone else, especially those closest to them. For the sake of all music lovers and musicians, consider the following guidelines for behaving courteously during performances.

Voices Carry

Needless to say, it is best to save conversation for after the concert, but realistically an auditorium with 2,000 people will never be absolutely silent — even for a short 20-minute piece of music. If you must talk to someone seated next to you during a performance, make sure that you lean close to that person’s ear and whisper – even though any audible voice can be heard by people near you.

Listen, Don’t Read

Try to read the program before the music begins or during intermission. The acoustics are so sensitive in the Hall that people rows away can hear you turn the pages of your program. Also, if you absolutely must look through the program, do not hold it up high because you will inevitably block the view of the performers for the person behind you.

Not So Soothing

Believe me, I don’t want to hear you coughing, especially during the quietist moments of the music. But, I also don’t want to hear you unwrapping your cough drop, especially when you’re doing it slowly, dragging the process out for minutes on end, because you think that makes it quieter, when actually I’m hearing every agonizing crinkle. So, if you think you will need to suck on a cough drop, suck on this first: unwrap them before the music starts and leave them in the loose wrapper so you won’t make a lot of noise when you need one.

Gesundheit!

Coughing and sneezing are probably the most disturbing things you can do because they can be heard by everyone in the Hall. But, hey, it’s unavoidable sometimes. So, what can you do to minimize the disturbance, not to mention the spread of germs?  First, try not to cough during the music. But if you must cough, try to do so during the loudest part of the music. If you can’t hold it until then, then cough into the crook of your arm or into a handkerchief to muffle the sound.

Echoing Down the Hall

This is a corollary to the above. If you have to leave because of a coughing fit, especially if you are sitting in the Orchestra East or West sections, do not cough loudly after you enter the hallway. Remember that the hallway is still inside the Hall and everyone can hear you coughing. Try to wait to cough until you leave the hallway through the doors opened for you by the ushers.

Eh Hem

Another corollary to the above is the clearing of throats. C’mon, do you really need to clear your throat during the music? If you answer yes to this question, then follow the same advice for coughing. Clear your throat during the loudest parts of the music or into the crook of your arm.

Tap Tap Tapping

The floors of Disney Hall are wooden, which is better for the acoustics. However, it also means that the hard shoes you wear can be heard not only when you walk on the floors, but also when you move your feet during a concert. So, if you must move your feet for comfort try to do so quietly. If you are the kind of person who likes to keep time with your feet, then wear soft-soled shoes.

Accessories That Clash

Women (and some men), please don’t wear jingly jewelry that makes noise every time you move your hand or arm. And don’t go into your purse in the middle of a performance. If there’s a chance you might need to go into your purse, unzip it ahead of time so at least that part won’t disturb your neighbors.

Newton’s Law

If it’s on your lap, it may fall on the floor. Please do not keep anything on your lap, including purses, canes or concert programs, because if they fall, they will make a disturbance than can be heard onstage. If you don’t realize how disturbing that can be, just ask András Schiff.

Photo of Disney Hall interior by David C. Miller / courtesy of LA Phil

The chamber music spotlight is focused on the much-anticipated Ascending Dragon Music Festival and Cultural Exchange this week. Jeff von der Schmidt and the Southwest Chamber Music ensemble are flying high with concerts featuring new music of American and Vietnamese composers.

The U.S. State Department grant that Southwest Chamber received for its Ascending Dragon Festival is certainly an impressive professional honor, bringing national and international distinction to the ensemble and the chamber music scene in Southern California generally. The festival is the largest cultural exchange between the United States and Vietnam and includes concerts and other events here and abroad in 2010.

Kurt Rohde and Alexandra du Bois are the American composers-in-residence for the Ascending Dragon Festival.  In a preview concert we reviewed in October,  Rohde (b. 1966) explained that the title of “Under the Influence” refers to the influence of other works Rohde had been working on during his time in Berlin, a hotbed of artistic activity.  When du Bois (b. 1981) was chosen from among more than 300 composers from 32 countries as the inaugural recipient of the Kronos Quartet’s “Under 30 Project” in 2003, she wrote her string quartet, “An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind,” which she cites as a protest of the invasion of Iraq. Her work is hauntingly beautiful and elegiac.

Saturday’s concert program at the Armory Center for the Arts features the aforementioned works by du Bois and Rohde as well as Vu Nhat Tan’s “Trang“ (U.S. premiere) and “Meditation & … ABC,” Nguyen Thien Dao’s “A Mi K Giao Tranh” (U.S. premiere), and Tôn Thât Tiêt’s “Mémoire de la Rivière” (U.S. premiere).

Monday’s concert program at Zipper Concert Hall features Nguyen Thien Dao’s “Dôi for bassoon and percussion” (U.S. premiere), Olivier Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour le fin du temps,” and Tôn Thât Tiêt’s “Les jardins d’autre monde” (U.S. premiere).

Saturday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m.
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.

Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena

Monday, March 1, 8 p.m.
Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m.

Zipper Concert Hall, The Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., LA

Tickets: $38 / $28 seniors / $10 students