Around Town - LA Opera Lohengrin - Not Much To Love

I have to admit that I was really looking forward to the opening night of Lohengrin.
Wagnerian Score + LA Opera's Creativity + James Conlon's Conducting = Awesome Night Out
Well, not exactly.
Let's just start with set and costumes.
The classic German mythical tale of the god/knight Lohengrin arriving on a swan to champion Elsa, the noblewoman who has been wrongfully accused of fratricide, was set in a snowy field hospital in a ruined church at the eve of World War I.  The stage was dark, the costumes were dreary and we all got the reference to the Caspar David Freidrich painting of the Cloister Cemetery in the Snow.

The tale was a struggle over control, isn't it always?

Lohengrin a resurrected soldier saved Elsa, from her foes, then made it all the way to the marriage bed with her.  But in usual female fashion, she screwed everything up by her insecurity. She asked the fatal question as to his identity and after he sings the sad story he must get back on his swan and leave giving up his one chance to return to mortality. Naturally, Elsa collapses and dies.

In other words there was no ultimate redemption through love.

My problem with the opera wasn't the singing.  It was lovely.

The two sopranos sang exquisitely and the chorus was brilliant.

What I couldn't take was the lack of visual interest. 

No matter how beautiful the voices, the set was dark and visually boring after the first 20 minutes.....and the same set is a lot to have to look at for a 4 plus hour opera.  And worse, the lead characters were costumed so poorly, particularly Lohengrin, that it made it hard to accept them as hero and heroine.

It was impossible to recognize that this was the opera that inspired the Ludwig II to build Neuschwanstein.

At $250 per ticket the Los Angeles Opera needs to come up with better productions if it wants to attract a new generation of subscribers.  If the LA Opera doesn't provide more of a wow factor, the young culture vultures of LA will not fill the seats of the Dorthy Chandler Pavilion.

Soldier? Saint? Sorcerer? Savior?

Snore?

Around Town - The Stigmatized at the LA Opera

Overall opera is a difficult art to appreciate. While some opera's are easily watched and enjoyed, such as Butterfly and Turandot, more often than not they are challenging, complicated, hours long and require simultaneous reading while watching the events on stage if you aren't familiar with the story or fluent in multiple languages. James Conlon's production of Franz Schreker's 'The Stigmatized' was one of these difficult operas but definitely worth seeing.

The story is set in fin-de-siecle Genoa with a plot that is marked by the Freudian undertones of the outside appearances and the internal decadence of the characters. There is ugliness and beauty and lust in the story, and of course a completely naked girl in a simulated rape scene on stage....because this is the LA Opera, and there are always naked girls and sex on the LA Opera stage.
The score is rich and romantic and sounds more like a film score than an opera. There are no snappy arias that you can hum to yourself later. While the Viennese Schreker is compared mostly to Strauss, I felt that his music was more akin to that of Korngold whose work was used both in opera and in film. Certainly Korngold must have been influenced by Schreker.

The singing by German soprano Anja Kampe, as the artist Carlotta, was extraordinary. She blew everyone away, including the lead tenor Robert Brubaker, as the crippled aristocrat. The set design was kept purposely simple in order to act as a background for a rich lighting design with elaborate projections. It was very beautiful production visually.

Here's the description from the LA Opera.
World-renowned conductor James Conlon continues the critically lauded, groundbreaking Recovered Voices series with the first-ever production in the Western hemisphere of any opera of Franz Schreker. The New Yorker commented that the work "vacillates between melodies of Mediterranean grace and textures of otherworldly complexity...One scene melts into another with cinematic ease."


Sadly, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center wasn't full and the average age of the audience was about 65. For a new generation raised on film, video games, twitter and instant gratification, I'm afraid that opera will be a lost art.

Around Town - La Opera - The Trouble With Tamerlano

While I love baroque music and appreciate vocal acrobatics, I've never been a fan of baroque opera and this season's Tamerlano, composed by Handel in 1734, performed by the LA Opera didn't make me a fan.

There was nothing at all wrong with the performance, and I liked the stark set and modern costumes. But listening to countertenor Bejun Mehta just made me squirm a little. Not that his performance wasn't technically brilliant, it was. It's just that opera is pretty much all about the same thing....some guy wants to nail some girl...who is in love with some other guy, drama ensues, somebody dies and the girl gets the guy she wants. So like with all dramatic stories, there's a hero, a heroine and a heavy.

Well having a countertenor sing the part of the heavy, Tarter emperor Tamerlano, and then having a mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon sing the trouser role part of hero Andronico, was just out of my comfort zone. Just listen to Mehta in the clip that I posted. How can you take a heavy seriously when he sings with a soprano voice that is almost higher than the mezzo-soprano. People, that's just weird.

And then we had Placido Domingo singing the part of Bajazet, the Turkish Sultan who has been conquered by Tamerlano. For me Domingo is a romantic hero in the Verdi or Pucchini mold, with deep emotional range of a brooding latin lover, not a trilling baroque Sultan.

But soprano Sarah Coburn as Asteria sang beautifully and looked like a dream in her confection of wedding gown.

In spite of what the LA times review said, I didn't think that the modern costuming was cliche. The Italian fascist style guards seemed to suit the stark set.

Tamerlano in his chic double vented suit looked hot...I just couldn't find him menacing with his high voice.

Domingo, dressed in rich traditional garb looked appealingly royal. And I loved the maidservants in their little modern black suits, glasses and hair pulled back in tight buns...they could have been out of a Robert Palmer music video.

And so what was my costume?

Well I wore some cute shoes

Note the sparkles.

(oh and I don't have cankles...it's just the angle of the photo)

And I wore my Autumn favorite, a chocolate cashmere sweater with a heavy silk peau de soie skirt, also in matching chocolate brown

As for the bling, I sported a Mexican fire opal and diamond bib style necklace with matching earrings

Here is the detail of the set

Mexican Fire Opal and Diamond Necklace and Earrings Set from Beladora.com

My one last complaint about the Opera

It's not enough for a company like the LA Opera just to rely on regular opera fans to fill the seats. It's absolutely necessary for it to attract new, and hopefully younger fans.

But it is frigging expensive.

Who would take someone on a date to the Opera and a late dinner when the Opera, with two drinks each during intermission and parking costs $568. Add dinner and the whole evening would be almost $1,000.

I don't think that this art form should be only for the wealthy patrons from Hancock Park, San Marino and Beverly Hills.
Don't you agree?

Playing With Polyvore - A Night At The Opera

Another Miss de Ville Production

Around Town - LA Opera Selling The Ring

It seems like every couple of weeks I'm getting called by someone at the LA Opera who wants to sell me tickets to the next year's special production of The Ring.

It amuses that the sales spiel is something like this
"These tickets are selling out quickly to international buyers so you've got to buy your tickets now...blah, blah, blah"

Given the fact that this production won't be staged until May-June 2010
not to mention that the price is over $2000
PER TICKET
I'm just not all that worried that the tickets will be sold out any time soon.

On the other hand perhaps it's true that tickets are selling to international opera fans,
because no matter how beautiful the music, powerful the voices or poignant the story, nobody in Los Angeles wants to see Freyer's operatic equivalent of singing teletubbies on the stage



Maybe they wouldn't have a problem selling tickets if the staging looked more like the floating harem in this production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Naples Teatro San Carlo.







My suggestion to the LA Opera
Stage a Ring with Valkyries and Rheinmaidens costumed by Agent Provocateur

For more on the international opera and classical music scene check out Opera Chic.

Dreaming About The Ring

You probably thought that I this is the ring that I had in mind. Vintage Bezel Set Diamond Ring in 18K from Beladora.com

But no.

I've been dreaming about the long awaited Ring Cycle by the LA Opera.

Seattle, San Francisco, Munich, Vienna and of course Bayreuth have staged all four of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle Operas

Das Rheingold

Die Walküre

Siegfried

and

Götterdämmerung

I'll admit that it can be difficult to sit through the 4 hour performances

But in the end it is worth it just to hear music like this.

The Fly - A Sci-Fi Love Story

Seriously... who else but the Los Angeles Opera would consider staging the 1950's Sci-Fi cult classic "The Fly" as an opera.
With a libretto by Tony Award winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), music by Oscar winning composer Henry Shore (The Lord of the Rings) and direction by David Cronenberg (the director of the film 'The Fly"). Add to this team sets by designer Dante Ferretti who did the Academy Award winning design for "The Aviator'.

What's not to love.


And what to wear to see this dark drama of love, loss and science gone dreadfully wrong?

Well something black of course.

Beladora Antique Victorian Diamond Brooch worn on a black silk cord as a pendant. Perfect with the neckline of this 1950's Nettie Rosenstein black silk suit from Hemlock Vintage.

Around Town - The LA Opera Salon Event

Il Trittico - Three One Act Operas by Puccini at the Los Angeles Opera

Vintage Christian Dior in Sapphire Silk at Retro Dress
Art Deco Sapphire and Diamond Bracelet at Beladora

Art Deco Sapphire and Diamond Ring at Beladora

The Opera Council of the Los Angeles Opera puts on a special Opera Salon event for its Board members and Patron donors. While I'm not a patron donor, I'm lucky enough to have a good friend who is on the Board who invited me to this week's Salon with a short talk by William Friedkin who directed two of the one act operas of Il Trittico. (Yeah...it's good to have friends in high places!)

William Friedkin , the Academy Award winning director of such films as The French Connection and the The Exorcist, loves Opera. Who knew? He gave a charming talk, with some particularly amusing stories, about the evolution of his career from starting in the mail room at a local Chicago TV station to directing TV programs to eventually directing movies. About ten years ago Zubin Metha, asked him to direct an Opera and he's been directing them ever since.

I haven't seen Il Trittico yet but everyone is raving about it. Of course, with the quality direction of Friedkin, the sopranos of the LA Opera, and the music of Puccini, which in my opinion is absolutely sublime, I know it's going to be wonderful.

And...when I go next week I will be wearing something like this vintage Dior suit in Sapphire with vintage Sapphire jewelry from Beladora.com.

Oh, and none other than Woody Allen is directing the third one act opera of Il Trittico.

Crowning Glory - The Ideal Accessory

Tosca, so lush, so lovely, but soooo long. I adore Puccini's operas, La Boheme, Carmen, Madame Butterfly and Turandot....what's not to love?

But for some reason Tosca, that old war horse, just doesn't rock my opera world. Maybe it's because I've seen it too many times. Or maybe it's because after I saw Placido Domingo and the memorable Hildegard Behrens sing it in the sublime Zeffirelli Met production in New York (way back in the day) complete with a back stage tour by the lighting designer Gil Wechsler, I just decided that I would never see a better Tosca.

Well the LA Opera, which staged the magnificent Dwarf this year is bringing back Tosca...again. But this year they are adding some bling to bring some sparkle to the production. As reported by the LA Times

For its latest revival of “Tosca,” opening Saturday, Los Angeles Opera has obtained a rare stage artifact – the jewelry worn by Maria Callas in 1956 for her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giacomo Puccini’s tragic heroine.

Made of nearly 200 tear-shaped Swarovski crystals, the jewelry was created specifically for Callas by the Atelier Marangoni in Milan, Italy.
The three-piece set, which consists of a tiara, earrings and a fanned-out necklace, is worth approximately $85,000, according to Swarovski, the current owner.

Of course you don't need to be a tragic heroine who throws herself off the Castel Sant'Angelo to sport such bling.

The Kazanjian Foundation has the perfect tiara for you...an Edwardian tiara circa 1910 which was worn by Madonna for her wedding to Guy Richie. This beautiful crown has 768 old cut diamonds, approximately 78 carats which can be converted into a necklace.

Come on, you know you always wanted to be a princess. Well here's your chance to buy a tiara and know that the money that you paid went to charity. I call that a win-win for everybody.