Silvestre Revueltas

Magical music of Mexico, April 15, 2007. The Pacific Symphony explores southward in its annual American Composers Festival.

Having Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic these many years was like having Berlioz or Mahler or Bernstein as our resident leader. The fact that he was not just a conductor but also a composer, and a gifted one at that, made everything that he did all the more interesting, his performances and programming and even just the way he talked to us.

His music-making always came from the point of view of a creator, not just a re-creator (which conductors are), and even his worst performances (there weren’t many) could have a fascination for that reason alone.
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I came across this in the “archives” not long ago. It’s a small poster from Giulini’s “Falstaff” with the L.A. Philharmonic in 1982. Giulini conducted and pretty much directed and designed the production, too. Renato Bruson was Sir John. It was the first opera I ever saw. It’s been downhill ever since.

I can’t be the only blogger not to link to this story so here it is, complete with video. Joshua Bell — you know, the famous violinist — turned street musician for a day in a DC Metro station. He may have only snagged $39, but he doesn’t need the dough anyway, since he recently won the $75,000 Avery Fisher Prize. The stunt at least got Bell an interview on All Things Concsidered and — gasp — they even reviewed his record on air.

On NPR Bell joked that since he wore a Nationals ball cap, no one recognized him. He’s a Mets guy. The whole thing might not prove much, as Justin Davidson remarks. Meanwhile, it seems that everyone knows who Sanjaya Malakar is (though our pop critic had to tell me).

photos by Nick Koon

Opera Pacific’s production of Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love,” which opened Wednesday in Segerstrom Hall, is a pleasant piece of froth. It should amuse those who like their operas dressed up and taken into a different era and it probably won’t offend purists since it mostly stays true to Donizetti.

I don’t quite see the point of it, though. This “Elixir” reminds me of cotton candy ” all fluff and color and air and you bite into it and it’s still just sugar. You pretty much need some knock-your-socks-off singing to make “Elixir” a compelling evening of theater (famous singers have paraded through the two lead roles over the years) and Opera Pacific fielded a decent, and sometimes better, cast but my socks remained firmly ensconced nevertheless.
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More April releases. The Rostropovich disc above contains, among many other items, a show-stopping recording of the Dvorak concerto, with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Opera Pacific’s production of Gaetano Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love,” which opens Wednesday in Segerstrom Hall, is not the usual rehash. That much was instantly clear to a reporter who strolled onstage recently to find a vintage RSA motorcycle, a cut down 1955 Ford Fairlane and a set that looked a little like the diner in “Happy Days.” A. Scott Parry, the director, awaited us in the empty auditorium to explain.

Parry, a friendly man with a goatee, fashionable specs and a spike of moussed hair atop his forehead, is an opera and theater director who is currently on the staff of the New York City Opera and the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music. Donizetti’s 1832 opera was set in contemporary rural Italy. Parry said that when Jonathan Miller, who originally conceived and directed this production for the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, first thought about doing a new “Elixir” he wanted to bring it into our own time.
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