By Jane Rosenberg Los Angeles. When Andre Previn asserted that A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams was already an opera – just without the singing, he spoke to the essence of the play. With the life and death struggle of Blanche DuBois, we have a dramatic heroine as grand and iconic as any Carmen,… Read More Opera: LA Opera’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
BY DON HECKMAN The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra opened its new season with a bang Sunday night at Royce Hall. A bang, that is, along with a lot of other unlikely orchestral sounds that surfaced during the premieres of a pair of new compositions. But more on that later. Typically for the LACO, it was… Read More Live Music: The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at Royce Hall
By Don Heckman There was a celebratory mood in the air at Vitello’s Saturday night. And with good reason. Cheryl Bentyne – one of the four vocal stars in the Manhattan Transfer constellation – was returning to action after successfully confronting a life threatening illness. In characteristic fashion, she did it in full out, take… Read More Live Jazz: Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler at Vitello’s
The International Review of Music 