A Patter-Happy "Barber" and Music that Comes Indoors
LACO in Peak Form, LA Phil Celebrates
By Donna Perlmutter
It’s hard to fault any “Barber of Seville” production for not having a star comic as its buffoonish villain.
Because once you’ve seen LA Opera’s 2009 staging of the Rossini perennial, a once-in-a-lifetime event, I’d say you’re spoiled forever more.
Remember that ridiculous old lecher/guardian-of-the-girl, that Dr. Bartolo, that Zero Mostel look-alike who stopped the show with his masterly timing, his singular command -- rolling his rotund self downstage to utter a single three-word question to a door-knock, in dead-pan, his face turned to the audience: “Who Ees Dare?”
That renowned Bartolo, the inspired singing actor who has sung the role at elite international houses, was Bruno Praticò.
Along with the all-important bass-baritone was a starry cast (Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Florez, Nathan Gunn), guided so cleverly onstage by Javier Ulacia.
But that was another time, seemingly light years away. A time when then-LA Opera artistic director Plácido Domingo coaxed his array of glitzy golden-throated cohorts to join him here. And we can’t necessarily reach those heights again soon.
Not, anyway, in Rossini’s patter-happy, ever-popular opera buffa (which, to me, can seem silly, simplistic and repetitive at worst); it runs currently onstage at the Music Center Pavilion through Nov. 12. But it can appeal to those looking for a light frolic with a tuneful score and pleasant-enough performances from a young, distinctly attractive cast, including the savvy Isabel Leonard -- all of whom meet the required vocal agility for florid singing.
Better not look for defining characterizations, though, or even much mirth, especially not from Paulo Bordogna, so nimble and athletic that he hardly embodies the crotchety Bartolo, who, in a good portrayal, is afflicted with FOMO (fear of missing out), as he greedily seeks to marry his ward, Rosina, and connives unsuccessfully to ace out her swain, Count Almaviva.
But it’s more than safe to catch the LA Philharmonic back at Disney Hall after its Hollywood Bowl summer season. Ever-enlivening when he stands before the band at its downtown venue -- and for many, especially so in this 20th anniversary of Frank Gehry’s world famous stainless steel structure with its ingeniously curving panels -- Gustavo Dudamel resumed his post as the sine qua non of high-allure podium meisters.
For that fall-opener there was Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto. And to say that the composer’s signature here bears the bleak, worldwide sense of insecurity and anguish at this time is an understatement.
Not unexpectedly, Kanneh-Mason found its sensibility with a refinement and depth pointed to the work’s aura -- powerfully.
To finally burst out of Shostakovich’s cell of doom, Dudamel brought the full orchestra onstage for virtual showpieces, two ballet scores that let the band gleam in all its brilliant, pin-point glory: Stravinsky’s irresistible “Firebird” Suite and Villa-Lobos’ unfamiliar “Uirapuru,” also a treat. Both drenched the rafters in razzle-bedazzlement.
Then, in Dudamel’s wake, came the kind of personnel we can expect regularly now. A conductor of the newly woke order: Female. (You do remember that, historically, all orchestra chiefs were strictly male, right? Just as were/are U.S. presidents.)
In addition to Elim Chan, who fits that new gender option and also is Chinese, more women are now recognized composers. Thus this next bill featured a Jessie Montgomery piece, hers, along with two that also fall into the dance category (as cleverly annotated by John Henken).
So with the call to diversity in mind -- conductors, composers, people of color -- all guesses are on as to who might become the Philharmonic’s next orchestra chief. Chan looks like one bet.
She’s impressive. At last, here’s a maestra who does it all: drives the orchestra hard, boasts a superb stick technique and a commanding podium presence that enjoys forthright expressiveness. Also there’s not a trace of feminine or masculine leaning -- just an adroit functionality in its purely physical form.
The effect of all this bore out in performance. Montgomery’s “Coincident Dances” gave us its lively, good-natured, Copland-esque spirit; Chan and the Phil also delivered, with Igor Levit, Gershwin’s Concerto in F (although lacking the echt sweep and slurs it embraces orchestrally, but with the Adagio finding the pianist’s jazz impulses, not to mention, of course his supreme virtuosity); and finally an electric reading of Rachmaninoff’s “Slavonic Dances.”
That’s not all. Season openings also came with the ever-enterprising, buoyant Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Once again, the ultimately heimish Jaime Martín held forth, chatting warmly as he always does, and bringing his faithful subscribers/university students/assorted denizens a musical feast that included a new work by throat singer Dai Wei whose multi-worldly “Invisible Portals,” a score of reverberations and sonic echoes, wafted through the air.
Martín, who goes for broad strokes in his conducting -- without necessarily bringing out internal voices, but is fully and lovingly engaged -- lent fine support to Augustin Hadelich in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. As a master of the legato line, he lives in the thrall of the music, in the wonder of it, purely, without any goo or sentimentality.
And no concert that ends with Mozart’s “Jupiter” -- especially as played here -- can leave an audience uninspired. Its sheer exuberance was a go-home-happy tonic.
In another orbit, dance, we saw that the local company, Body Traffic, is alive and well at its new home, the Wallis in Beverly Hills. Quite a lovely venue for the troupe that somehow keeps itself strong and solvent -- no easy task considering the short careers of dancers who must rack up as many performances as possible through their limited duration, options that less-than-major international companies cannot offer them.
So it’s a matter of donors, bookings, new choreographies -- more trouble than most can manage. Hand the credit to directors Tina Finkelman Berkett and Guzmán Rosado.
What’s more, the program they recently offered at the Wallis mirrored the arts/entertainment culture of today: lots of underserved focus on Black artists. And who could be -- and has been -- more central to that than James Brown, master of brilliant multi-rhythmic, multi-voiced soul music.
Well, the bill focused on him and Etta James, and the choreography for it, Micaela Taylor’s “Snap,” was simply compelling. It throbbed with the life blood of Brown, his voice and band, its story of love -- the painful partings, the heart-aches and pledges to devotion. The whole ensemble, led by Ty Morrison, an unstoppable coiled spring of flabbergasting power, seemed bred in these soul stirrings.
For a more poetic tone there was Fernando Hernando Magadan’s cumbersomely titled, “The Act of Becoming,” which took its atmospheric cues from Ravel’s “Bolero.” It follows a wanderer from his lonely state to a spirited and joyous union with community.
“Body Traffic” not only knows how to stay current but, to simply stay.