stage

SWAN LAKE

Mona Day Dance, See, stage, Theater

The 22nd season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center will conclude its 2024-2025 season with one of the most recognized pieces in the classical canon – the iconic Swan Lake.  The performance by Boston Ballet June 26–29 marks  the company’s  long-awaited debut at the Music Center.

Swan Lake tells the story of Princess Odette, who is cursed by the sorcerer Von Rothbart to be a swan during the day and a woman at night, and only true love can break the spell.  Prince Siegfried, captivated by her beauty, pledges his eternal love, but the sorcerer tricks Siegfried into breaking his vow leading to her tragic fate by conjuring an illusion of Odette. 


This timeless story of love, betrayal, deceit and sacrifice in a world of sorcery and romance is set to Tchaikovsky’s soaring score. The second act, originally choreographed by Lev Ivanov, is widely considered one of the finest pieces of classical choreography ever created for the corps de ballet.  

Boston Ballet’s artistic director Mikko Nissinen and the company’s adaption of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece dazzles with stunning audiovisuals highlighting  Robert Perdziola’s impeccable set and costume designs, and amplifying the emotional rendering and technical precision of the company’s dancers. The performance will be accompanied by a live orchestra conducted by Boston Ballet music director Mischa Santora. 

Boston Ballet’s has been performing to international acclaim since 1963 and has cultivated a compelling and dynamic collection of classical, neo-classical and contemporary repertoire.  

Artistic director Mikko Nissinen has been defining the company’s image since 2001.  Born in Finland, Nissinen trained at The Finnish National Ballet School in Helsinki and the Kirov Ballet School. He danced professionally with The Finnish National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet and San Francisco Ballet where he was a principal dancer for a decade. Nissinen is committed to developing the art form and the future of dance and actively promotes progressive new works and creations.

Boston Ballet’s Los Angeles stop will extend its visit beyond the Music Center stage to lead  a free outdoor movement workshop on Saturday, June 28, 10:00 a.m.–11:00 am, on Jerry Moss Plaza at The Music Center on Saturday June 28, 10:00 a.m to 11:00 a.m. Taught by two of the company’s artists, Associate Director of Boston Ballet Joan Boada and Principal Dancer Chyrstyn Mariah Fentroy, the free special workshop ‘Plié & Play: A Swan Lake–Inspired Movement Workshop’ is open to the public and will explore the elegance and expression of ballet and the joy of movement in a fun, accessible way. No dance experience or special attire is needed; participants of all ages are encouraged to wear comfortable clothes and be ready to move. For more information and tickets, please visit musiccenter.org/bostonballet or call (213) 972-0711.

Grupo Corpo:  A Thrill From Brazil

Mona Day Dance, See, stage

Leading Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo will return to LA Performing Arts Center after 14 years for three performances May 2–4.The company whose name means ‘body group’ in Portuguese will present  two works 21 and Gira which blend classical ballet, folk traditions and bold choreography. 

The program opens with Pederneiras’ 1992  groundbreaking work 21, a ballet divided into three movements that weave the company’s 22 dancers into rhythmic and timbral combinations of the number 21. Featuring a score by Marco Antônio Guimarães, the choreography moves with precision with a series of mesmerizing movements that blend the energy of Brazilian folk dances with the formality of classical ballet. The 40-minute piece amplifies the unique sounds of Guimarães’ unusual instrumental composition which culminates in a colorful, dynamic finale.

 
For Gira Pederneiras immersed himself in the history and practices of Brazil’s Afro-Brazilian religions, particularly Umbanda, transforming the characteristic the powerful gestures of Umbanda and Candomblé ceremonies nto a universal human expression.  His choreography reconstructs the powerful gestures captures trance-like turning and movements as well as the raw and dizzying energy of their sacred rites. Set to eleven musical themes created specially for the company by Brazilian fusion group Metá Metá, Gira becomes a mesmerizing 40-minute piece of primal, ritualistic energy. 

Artistic director Paulo Pederneiras founded the company in 1975 recruiting his siblings who included choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras.  Grupo Corpo went on to become the resident dance company of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, France from 1996–1999, and today, with over 40 works in its repertoire, the company has gained international acclaim for disciplined dancing by virtuoso dancers who seamlessly integrate disparate influences.

For more information and tickets, please visit  musiccenter.org/grupocorpo or call (213) 972-0711.

Ainadamar

Mona Day Opera, See, stage

LA Opera will present the company premiere of Ainadamar April 26 through May 18. 

The show recounts the fateful final days of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca who was executed during the Spanish Civil War at a natural spring in the hills above the Spanish city of Granada known as Aynadamar, Arabic for fountain of tears. 

Recounting the poet’s life is Margarita Xirgu, a veteran Spanish actress and Lorca’s muse who spent her career portraying Mariana Pineda in Lorca’s play.  Pineda was a 19th-century political martyr executed by the absolutist Spanish regime for sewing a revolutionary flag with the embroidered slogan “Equality, Freedom and Law.  Lorca  could see her statue from the window of his family home in Granada and grew to idolize her.  Evoking the vibrant colors and poetry of Andalusia and especially Lorca’s hometown Granada, the play was Lorca’s first theatrical success. He asked Xirgu to play the title role at its premiere in June 1927 at the Teatre Goya in Barcelona with scenic design and costumes by Salvador Dalí.

Xirgu fled Spain at the beginning of the Civil War but was unable to persuade Lorca to leave as well. His liberal beliefs and open homosexuality subsequently led to his death at the hands of the Falange, the fascist party founded by the son of former Spanish dictator General Primo de Rivera. Xirgu continued to play Mariana Pineda, keeping Lorca’s work alive.  The opera is based on Xirgu’s memories in a series of flashbacks as she prepares  to go on stage as Mariana Pineda.  

The opera opens with a group of young actresses singing the opening ballad and Xirgu remembers Lorca’s brilliance as she tells her young student Nuria of meeting Lorca for the first time in a Madrid bar where he first described his play to her. The flashback is interrupted by a broadcast over the state radio by the Falangist Ramón Ruiz Alonso that his party will stamp out the beginnings of the revolution.  With the launch of the Spanish Civil War, Xirgu pleads with Lorca to join her and her theatre company in Cuba, but he is adamant about staying on in Granada. Xirgu blames herself for not being able to persuade the idealistic Lorca to abandon Spain and save himself.  As she sings of her dreams of finding freedom in Cuba, Lorca insists that he must witness and write about his country’s suffering.

As Xirgu is dying, she performs Pineda’s story for the last time, telling Nuria that though the actor acts only for a moment, but the larger idea of freedom transcends that. A vision of Lorca interrupts her, thanking her for immortalizing his spirit on stage, in the hearts of her students, and the world. 

Led by Resident Conductor Lina González-Granados, the production features a dramatic, flamenco-inspired score by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov and a poignant libretto by David Henry Hwang. Staged by director Deborah Colker, the production has  won acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera and Detroit Opera.

Ana María Martínez (currently appearing as Despina in LAO’s Così fan tutte) returns to take center stage as Lorca’s muse, Margarita Xirgu. 

Since its 2003 world premiere, Ainadamar has become one of the most frequently performed operas of the 21st century, seen throughout Europe, North America and South America. Although it is an LA Opera company premiere, the opera has even been performed extensively locally in LA by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2004, Long Beach Opera in 2012 and USC Thornton Opera in 2016, and so should be familiar to local audience.

Ainadamar is sung in Spanish with both English and Spanish supertitles. 

Special Events planned around the opera include  a Celebración de las Artes hosted by LA Opera Connects and Hispanics for LA Opera after the May 4 matinee, with  music, food and fun for all on the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza.

The May 7 performance will mark Pride Night, with a special post-performance gathering for attendees. 

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Ainadamar.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Mona Day Dance, See, stage

Dance at The Music Center will present an impressive five-day seven-performance engagement with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater April 2–6.  Led by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, it celebrates the legacy of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison’s 2024 passing with LA premieres, new productions, repertory favorites and Ailey classics.

The first program (Program A) features the L.A. premieres of Sacred Songs (2024) choreographed by Los Angeles native Matthew Rushing; Many Angels (2024) choreographed by Lar Lubovitch; and a restaging of Treading (1979) choreographed by Elisa Monte. Program A will be performed on the evenings of April 2, 4 and 6 and a matinee on April 5.

The second program (Program B) includes a new production of Ailey favorites: Grace (1999) choreographed by Ronald K. Brown; Ailey Excerpts choreographed by Alvin Ailey from his Pas De Duke (1976), Masekela Langage (1969), Opus McShann (1988), Love Songs (1972) and For ‘Bird’ – With Love (1984); and Cry (1971), a tribute to Judith Jamison choreographed by Alvin Ailey. Program B will be performed on the evenings of April 3 and 5 and a matinee on April 6.

Both programs will conclude with the company’s signature masterpiece Revelations which continues to lift audiences with its grace and spiritual elation.

The L.A. premiere of Sacred Songs, created by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, features music used in the original 1960 premiere of Revelations but later omitted in its current version.  The  stirring piece resurrects the spirituals as an offering to audiences’ present need for lamentation, faith and joy. 

Many Angels features Lar Lubovitch’s lush choreography for Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, inspired by the question posed by 13th century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”  The question is not about factual truth, but faith. 


In Elisa Monte’s Treading, two dancers come together in fluid, intricate movements that combine with Steve Reich’s meditative music to create  mystery and sensuality.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Ronald K. Brown’s spellbinding Grace is set to Duke Ellington’s classic Come Sunday, Peven Everett’s hit Gabriel and Fela Kuti’s afro-pop music. Grace depicts individuals on a journey to the promised land, expanding from a single angel-like figure in white to the fireball intensity of 12 powerful dancers. The piece connects the  secular and sacred in a fusion of African and American dance.

The 16-minute solo Cry was an immediate sensation at its 1971 New York City Center premiere, propelling Ailey’s muse Judith Jamison to international stardom and later to become the company’s artistic director.  Here she represents the trials and tribulations of Black women’s African origins and their joyful triumph over hardships. In a tribute to Jamison, there will be performances of the finale of Cry set to the Voices of East Harlem singing Right On, Be Free.

Revelations is an intimate reflection of Mr. Ailey’s childhood memories of growing up in the South and attending services at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Texas and pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of the African American community. Since its debut in 1960, it has been moving audiences with its powerful storytelling and soul-stirring music evoking themes of determination, hope and transcendence as it explores the emotional spectrum of the human condition. 

 Turandot

Mona Day Entertainment, Opera, See, stage, Theater

LA Opera will present Giacomo Puccini’s spectacular Turandot, one of the grandest of all operas, from May 18 through June 8. Puccini’s  final opera showcasing the magnificent music of Italy’s last great operatic composer created at the height of his maturity and technical mastery has continued to draw standing ovations over the last century. 

When Puccini’s untimely death in 1924 left his final opera unfinished, composer Franco Alfano was commissioned to create the ending for its world premiere at Milan’s La Scala in 1926, and his version has the standard finale. 

As a fairy tale set in legendary China, the opera is a departure from the composer’s verismo image and reflects the European fascination with the exotica of Orientalism that shaped 19th-century European arts.  Puccini had already explored it in Madama Butterfly, and now  re-visits it with a richer, more exotic palette.

Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, Italy’s former Italian diplomat to China had given Puccini a music box that played four Chinese melodies, three of which Puccini incorporated into this opera, with the most memorable of these being the folk melody Mò Li Hūa ‘Jasmine Flower’, which serves as a leitmotif for Princess Turandot.  Eight of the themes from Turandot appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems.

However, as elsewhere the Orientalism of the opera remains remains rooted in the West, and remains China as seen by Europeans.  The plot’s central dramatic moment is the life and death confrontation between the Princess Turandot and the Unknown Prince posed by the three riddles which must be correctly answered for the prince to escape execution  are rooted in the enigmas in the classical tradition of Ancient Greece, and the comedic characters of the ministers  Ping, Pang and Pong are straight out of Italy’s commedia del arte tradition.

For many years, the government of the People’s Republic of China forbade performance of Turandot because to them it portrayed China and the Chinese unfavorably.  They finally relented for the international collaboration Turandot at the Forbidden City performed for eight nights in September 1998.  Conducted by Zubin Mehta, the production featured opulent sets, even using soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army as extras. 

The opera’s celebrated aria Nessun dorma has become a staple of operatic recitals, with Luciano Pavarotti taking it beyond the operatic world by performing it for a global general audience at the 1990 World Cup, and the Three Tenors performed it at three subsequent World Cup Finals. Many crossover and pop artists have continued to perform and record it, and it has been used in the soundtracks of numerous films.

A co-production of San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, the LA production is new to Los Angeles. Turandot’s soprano role is demanding both in its range – from vulnerability to the ice-cold princess of  her bloody reign.  It must also keep the audience attention  and audience sympathy from being upstaged by the other soprano – the selfless Liu tugging at the audience’s heartstrings. Angela Meade is up for this this challenging role, with Russell Thomas as her fearless suitor.

Conducted by LA Opera’s Music Director James Conlon, the production features stage designs by David Hockney, long associated with Southern California, creating the splendor and spectacle of imperial China. 

Turandot is sung in Italian with English subtitles, with a running time of two hours and 55 minutes which includes two intermissions.  There will be six performances of Turandot, all at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

For more information about the production is available at LAOpera.org/Turandot.

LA TRAVIATA

Mona Day Entertainment, Opera, See, stage, Theater

LA Opera will present a beloved staple of the opera repertoire, Giuseppe Verdi’s romantic tragedy La Traviata, from April 6 through 27.

The story of La Traviata, The Fallen Woman,  follows the Parisian courtesan Violetta Valéry whose love affair with Alfredo Germont offers her an unexpected taste of true love, but also devastating consequences when Alfredo’s father intervenes.

The story is based on the life of a real woman Marie Duplessis who rose from poverty to become one of 19th-century Paris’s most celebrated courtesans before dying from tuberculosis in her prime at age 23. Writer Alexandre Dumas based his romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias on their brief affair and subsequently adapted the novel into a hugely successful play upon which Verdi based his opera.

Marie’s tragically short life continues to both haunt and inspire creative expression in  film from the silent era to modern times, including the 1936 Greta Garbo classic Camille, the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, and the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! Franco Zeffrelli directed  a film of the opera in 1982 starring LA Opera’s Placido Domino. 

Since its 1853 premiere, La Traviata has won the hearts of generations of opera fans with its memorable music with deep emotional resonance highlighted by the  prelude,  and  showstopping arias like Violetta’s Sempre libera to make it one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. 

One of 1850s trio of Verdi’s most popular operas, La Traviata is an example of French influenced romantic realism that was calculated to test the moral tolerance of its contemporary audience. The Parisian drawing rooms were habited by men like Germont who had no problems while carousing and gambling themselves, had no problem seeing the courtesan, an epitome of selfless love as morally inferior.  When Traviata first played in London, the theater provided no translation of the libretto, fearing that might cause moral offense. 

But history has proven the last laugh to be Violetta’s and Verdi’s, as both sing their way into immortality as the beloved La Traviata.

Music Director James Conlon will conduct five of the six performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with Louis Lohraseb conducting on April 18. The production, new to Los Angeles, premiered in San Francisco Opera in 2022.  Directed by Shawna Lucey, it  stars Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Violetta and  Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan as her lover Alfredo. 

The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles. The running time is  approximately two hours and 55 minutes, including two intermissions.

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Traviata.

A DOUBLE FEATURE OF ONE-ACT GEMS

Mona Day Opera, See, stage, Theater

LA Opera will present two one-act rarities – William Grant Still’s Highway 1, USA and Alexander Zemlinsky’s The Dwarf  conducted by Music Director James Conlon  February 24 through March 17.

Unifying the operas is the theme of unrequited love told through powerful, emotional music.  The story of Highway 1  USA follows a hardworking Black couple Bob and Mary, who have scrimped and saved to put Bob’s younger brother through college. After the ne’er-do-well Nate attacks Mary for refusing his advances, the couple come together to focus on building a better life for themselves.

Based on Oscar Wilde’s The Birthday of the Infanta  The Dwarf  involves a birthday celebration for a young Spanish princess, who along with other gifts is presented with a Dwarf, who falls in love with her. She toys with his affections before callously rejecting him;  devastated, he dies of a broken heart.  A gothic tale of an impossible one-sided romance in a decadent Spanish court, the story is animated by a lush and romantic score.  The production was last staged at LA Opera to critical acclaim in 2008. 

A second theme unifying the double bill is that they are both works by major composers lauded in their time but who fell into obscurity as a result of oppression.  Hailed as ‘the dean of African-American composers’,  trailblazing composer William Grant Still wrote more than 150 works ranging from operas, ballets, symphonies and chamber pieces and was the first Black conductor to conduct a major American symphony orchestra when he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a 1936 concert of his own compositions at the Hollywood Bowl.  However, he fell into obscurity despite his early successes as well as the quality of his compositions, especially his operas.  As such, Highway 1, USA composed in the 1940s didn’t have a major professional production until one by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2021.

Similarly, The Dwarf was composed by Zemlinsky during his conducting tenure  at the Deutsches Landestheater, but he was forced to resign when the Nazis seized power, and after Hitler’s invasion forced to flee with his family to New York where he died in 1942, a broken man.  He then fell into obscurity till his rediscovery in the 1970s.

Both operas are part of LA Opera’s groundbreaking Recovered Voices initiative  launched by LA Opera in 2007. 

There will be six performances of the double bill at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Highway 1, USA is sung in English,  The Dwarf  in German, and both will feature projected subtitles in English.  The running time is approximately two hours and 50 minutes, including one intermission.  For more information and tickets, please visit  LAOpera.org

THE LAST DREAM OF FRIDA AND DIEGO

Mona Day Opera, See, stage, Theater

LA Opera will present the company premiere of El último sueño de Frida y Diego, The Last Dream of Frida and Diego with six performances November 18 – December 9 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. 

The new opera by composer Gabriela Lena Frank and librettist Nilo Cruz draws an  international cast in a tribute to two iconic Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.  When a desperate wish on Day of the Dead reunites Diego Rivera with his wife Frida Kahlo, Diego jumps at the chance to seek forgiveness, but Frida refuses to return to the world that caused her so much pain, until another departed soul inspires her to look back at the art and the man she once loved. 

This provides the impetus for Mexico’s renowned artists and infamously stormy lovers and their paintings to come alive as the artists’ emblematic paintings blend  with a folklore-inspired score to provide  a fresh perspective on the love-hate saga of the famous couple. 

The opera is sung in Spanish with subtitles in both English and Spanish with a running time of approximately two hours and 15 minutes which includes one intermission.  The production includes brief nudity, viewer discretion is advised. 

Special events planned for the production include a Newcomer Night on Thursday Nov 30 that will include a pre-show talk introducing the story and music as well as  a reception with wine and desserts during  intermission.  Celebración de las Artes hosted by Hispanics for LA Opera on Sunday, Dec 3 performance will provide music, food and fun on the plaza. For more information about the production and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Frida.