Karen WeinsteinTheaterLos Angeles,
Addiction is as hot a topic now as it was in 2012 when Quiara Alegria Hudes won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, "Water by the Spoonful." It may not be your number one topic, but do ...
Karen WeinsteinMusicLos Angeles,
The Candide credits make it look like opera designed by a committee. But what a committee. It didn't start that way. Lillian Hellman, in high dudgeon over the early activities of the McCarthy Committee and its followers, approached Bernstein with ...
Toba SingerDanceLos Angeles,
In its December 2, two-performance appearance at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Music Center in Los Angeles, the Cuban dance company Malpaso featured “Indomitable Waltz,” a 2016 work set on the company in Cuba by noted choreographer Aszure Barton. It was ...
Karen WeinsteinTheaterLos Angeles,
Sometimes a pot shot is just too easy. Sometimes it lands right on the bull’s eye. “Something Rotten,” the title of the new musical at the Ahmanson, offers a quiver full of justifications for a critic to lay into it. ...
Karen WeinsteinMusicLos Angeles,
Verdi’s “Nabucco” could be conceptualized as the protest opera for all seasons. It premiered in 1842, when Giuseppe Verdi was 28 years old, and Italy was a loose confederation of city states dominated by foreign powers, especially Austria in the ...
Karen WeinsteinMusicLos Angeles,
Why, you may ask yourself, have I not heard this opera before? Good question. George Bizet, the composer, is practically a household word, even though his only product you may be able bring to mind is “Carmen,” this season’s LA ...
Karen WeinsteinTheaterLos Angeles,
What on earth does “Head of Passes” mean? Let us clear that up quickly. It is the mouth of the Mississippi River, a desolate wetland where the river breaks into three branches as it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. ...
Karen WeinsteinDanceLos Angeles,
I have never felt that ballet was a very successful medium for telling a story. To convey emotion? It works. For the set up of a situation? Sure. But details that push the story forward become exaggerated pantomime. Therefore, I ...
Karen WeinsteinTheaterLos Angeles,
Say: Paul Rudnick. What do you think of? Most likely The New Yorker column, “Shouts and Murmurs,” to which he is a frequent contributor. So your expectation is lots of toss-off, funny one liners, right? Well, “Big Night” has many ...
Karen WeinsteinMusicLos Angeles,
The battle lines are drawn. On the one side there are the opera snobs who label “Carmen” as that “chestnut.” On the other, there are the thousands who fill halls when “Carmen” plays. The beautiful and melodic score, and the ...
