#if you were at the scala concert. bless you.

[delicatepointofview]

The Scala concert in 2020 being a turning point for Louis when it comes to his confidence in performances

[loosealcina]

GIUSEPPE VERDI'S SIMON BOCCANEGRA AT LA SCALA, MARCH 1, 2018

I find it hard to talk about this iteration of Simon Boccanegra. The bottom line (I won't keep you in suspense over this one) is that the staging alone—created by Federico Tiezzi back in 2009 as a Berlin/Milan co-production with Plácido Domingo in the lead and Daniel Barenboim on the podium; set/costume design by Pier Paolo Bisleri/Giovanna Buzzi—sort of destroyed my experience altogether. (As for the how, imagine a mere concert performance enhanced [maybe not the best word…] by ultra-conventional backdrops, costumes, and acting. If I had to scan everything for positives, I think I'd point out that a certain effort was made to present a truly dark, pessimistic finale). But here's the biggest problem: as soon as the final chord was gone, I was all but ready to start complaining about/harshly criticizing Simon Boccanegra. Not this production—the work itself! I'm aware that any given opera (including the most commanding masterpiece one could think of) can look genuinely bad under the right—I mean under the wrong—circumstances. Hence I'll refrain from commenting on characters, motives, language, etc. (Even if I'm tempted to). Besides, there's something special about Simon Boccanegra.

Twenty-something years after its début, Giuseppe Verdi decided to give it another go and reworked it with the help of young librettist Arrigo Boito, paving the way for the late harvest of Otello and Falstaff. Plus Claudio Abbado and Giorgio Strehler's version (which first appeared at La Scala on December 7, 1971) has become a revered classic over the years. So I'll just add that my favorite actor/singer was Fabio Sartori (Gabriele Adorno), whose voice kept an elegant balance between heroism (I guess Gabriele can be described as a cousin of Manrico's) and restraint. The orchestra conducted by Myung-Whun Chung—sweet and flexible from the outset, at times moody, and generally blessed with clean, shimmering violins—deserved nothing but praise. They couldn't quite overcome the obstacles I've tried to report on, but a handful of memorable moments were definitely there. The accompaniment to Amelia's aria by the sea («Come in quest'ora bruna», beginning of Act I) featured silvery descending figures that sounded absolutely Wagner-esque. And the solemn curse on the unknown kidnapper—questionable as it was as far as theatre and narration are concerned—came with an amazingly introspective bass clarinet and a full line of thunderous, awe-inspiring trombones.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

L.A.’s singular voice Plácido Domingo built an opera town 50 years in the making, and he’s not done yet “I HAVE the enthusiasm. I have the passion,” says Los Angeles Opera General Director Plácido Domingo of the busy schedule he keeps 60 years into his career. (Gary Friedman Los Angeles Times) By Mark Swed music critic >>> Plácido Domingo clearly has a pretty good memory. He’s sung 148 roles — mostly tenor throughout his 60-year career, although now at 76, he’s an active baritone — a record that has no chance of being broken in the foreseeable future, if ever. He’s conducted numerous more operas. He’s been responsible for presenting and also commissioning a bunch more works as an opera administrator. He’s accomplished impossibly too much and is far too busy to possibly remember it all. ¶ He necessarily looks ahead, not back. “I rest, I rust” is the motto he loves to repeat. ¶ Sitting in his Dorothy Chandler Pavilion office at Los Angeles Opera, the company he helped found 31 years ago and now heads, Domingo agreeably makes an effort to reflect on his past, although he can’t resist readily transitioning to the present. Friday marks the 50th anniversary of his Los Angeles debut, and L.A. Opera is throwing a gala Friday to celebrate. “It’s late of life,” Domingo cheerfully announces before allowing himself a brief indulgence in reverie. He will be 77 in January, so, he says, “it’s a must” to continue on as he still can rather than rest on a warehouse full of rusting laurels. “I have the enthusiasm. I have the passion,” he says. “I always say, when I hear, ‘the years are passing,’ I want them to pass. I don’t want them to stay.” All of a sudden a date pops out of his memory: Feb. 22, 1966. That night New York City Opera moved into the recently built State Theatre (now named for David H. Koch) at Lincoln Center. The feisty company promoted young singers, boasted low ticket prices and was dubbed the People’s Opera to distinguish it from the glitzy Metropolitan Opera. This was a big deal for New York, a big deal for American opera and, it turned out, a very big deal for Los Angeles. City Opera went daringly all out, presenting the U.S. premiere of modernist Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s “Don Rodrigo” in what was the most ambitious and spectacular production of the company’s 22-year history. Yet for all the news of the evening, seemingly all anyone could talk about afterward was the young, unknown tenor making his New York debut in the title role. A year later City Opera chose that production and that tenor to open the first of what would be 17 seasons for opera-starved L.A. at the Music Center. The next night, Domingo was back onstage in “La Traviata” and praised in these pages for being “manly, temperamental … and blessed with a big well-focused, well-rounded tenor.” What was Domingo’s impression of L.A. on his first trip here? He liked it, especially the weather, he says. He had a good time. He was impressed by the 3-year-old, state-of-the-1960s-art Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But he was a young singer on the fast path to the top, ready to conquer the opera world, and L.A. couldn’t have meant that much to Domingo then. In 1967, it wasn’t the opera world. Domingo left City Opera soon afterward, but he returned to the Music Center as a guest singer in 1970 and ’72. The year in between he appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in “La Traviata” with Beverly Sills and a just-starting-out James Levine conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. By then San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, Vienna State Opera and Covent Garden in London were calling. In the meantime, City Opera would soon begin to lose its luster in L.A. “I had first thought that City Opera was a great solution, that it was really going to pave the way for creating an opera company in L.A.,” Domingo says. “But it didn’t happen. The Music Center didn’t want it to happen.” Nor did the L.A. Phil, which began to put on opera itself. Between 1972 and 1984, Domingo visited L.A. only for special occasions — appearing on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” or performing a benefit concert with Carlo Maria Giulini and the L.A Phil. But he sensed something stirring in the atmosphere. The 1984 Olympics changed everything. London’s Royal Opera headlined the Olympic Arts Festival with three operas performed in the Dorothy Chandler, including the premiere of a new production of Puccini’s “Turandot” with Domingo. The tenor and L.A. finally clicked. He appeared as a soloist in the “Ode to Joy” finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony the night before the Olympics opening ceremony in a special L.A. Phil Hollywood Bowl program. He sang for 100 disabled children at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. He appeared in a solo concert at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa. He also got chummy with L.A. opera activists, particularly three local attorneys — Don Franzen, Peter Funsten and Bernard A. Greenberg — who were fundamental in founding what would become Music Center Opera (later to be called Los Angeles Opera). “I was always saying to them, ‘The people are hungry for opera,’ ” Domingo reminisces. “It was then, during the Olympics, that it was decided to form an opera company.” The British manager Peter Hemmings was hired as director. Domingo became an artistic advisor. Just as important, he became the face of the company. He radiated celebrity, and it would be hard to imagine such a company having been formed at the time it was and the way it was without the benefit of that. To get a sense of just the kind of local — and international — presence Domingo had become, in August 1986 the singer organized a concert, “Plácido Domingo & Friends,” at Universal Amphitheatre to raise money for the victims of a devastating earthquake in Mexico City. His friends were Frank Sinatra, John Denver, Julie Andrews and Kirk Douglas. His itinerary for the next two weeks was: Mexico City to Berlin to Salzburg to Vienna to Berlin to Madrid to Paris to New York to Barcelona to L.A. to Denver to London to Madrid to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to New York. A month later, Music Center Opera opened with a celebrated production of Verdi’s “Otello” starring — who else? “The rest,” Domingo says with a knowing smile, “is history.” That is his perfect segue to the present. Thirty-one years later, when Domingo is not singing onstage or conducting in the pit, he’s running the show. One of his first projects, having become general director of the company in 2003, was to create the post of music director, which went to Kent Nagano and, since 2006, James Conlon. “I still have one thing to do, though,” Domingo insists. “I want to convince some of the big names to come and conduct,” three of them past and present L.A. Phil music directors. “We were lucky finally that Gustavo [Dudamel] came [for two performances of “La Boheme” last year], and we are trying to find a way for him to return. It would be great if we could bring back [Esa-Pekka] Salonen. And, of course, Zubin [Mehta].” In fact, Domingo’s to-do list is large. There is the renovation of the Chandler, something that’s been talked about for years. Domingo says he still loves the theater. “I think it works, but it will be better if we have fewer seats and improve the acoustics. And make it more beautiful. The other solution is if someone comes along and says, ‘I want to build a new theater.’ ” “But my first dream,” Domingo says, “is that by the turn of the decade we can do more productions now that we’ve balanced the budget. I’ll be happy if we can add one more. I’ll be thrilled if we can do two more. “As you know, opera is not a business, and my really big dream is that someone out of the blue gives us a huge donation. Many opera companies have had that. I would love to read in the Los Angeles Times that someone has given the company $40 million or $50 million.” Until that time comes along, Domingo has ideas for stretching the dollars that are, he quickly adds, being generously donated by the L.A. Opera board. He’s fine with sharing productions with other companies to reduce the expense. The current lavish and quirkily inventive “Nabucco,” which Domingo dominates in the title role, is a co-production with three other American companies. But Domingo is even more bullish on the use of technology in staging. Instead of bulky and expensive physical productions, he suggests projections. “Many productions today don’t mean anything,” he complains. “They might be staged in two boxes of different colors, one orange, one purple. You don’t know where you are, and audiences want to know where they are when they see ‘Aida’ [set in Egypt] or ‘Turandot’ [set in China].” More plans for growth? Domingo notes that the company hosted a citywide Wagner festival when the budget-busting “Ring Cycle” was staged seven years ago but has done no Wagner since. That is about to change, he promises. (A Wagnerian, himself, Domingo will conduct “Die Walküre” at the Bayreuth Festival this summer.) He wants more new work, and, without naming them, hints that commissions are on the way. “I feel really proud that Gustavo at the L.A. Phil and I are Hispanic or Latino,” he says while adding yet another challenge, “but I think we have to do more for the Latino community.” Domingo remains active running Operalia, the contest he founded that funnels young singers into opera companies all over the world. You might say he remains active running and leave it at that. He mentions having just gone to New York on a free day between performances at L.A. Opera to see his grandchildren. He filled another short break opening a theater complex in Guadalajara. He likes nothing better, he says, than opening theaters because of all the promise they hold. Then there is the quick trip to Prague to conduct a special performance of “Don Giovanni” to mark the 230th anniversary of the Estates Theater, where Mozart’s opera had its premiere. “I have time as long as I have life,” Domingo sums up his philosophy. “If I am in good health and if the planet exists.” Once more, Domingo refuses rest when there is a pressing challenge, and he’s off on a new tangent: the recent profusion of natural disasters. After Domingo announced that he would donate a portion of the ticket sales from a concert at San Antonio’s Alamodome to American Red Cross disaster relief, the event was postponed lest it compete with basketball in Houston that night. He’s a huge sports fan and attended the seventh game of the World Series in Dodger Stadium, yet Domingo nonetheless laments that “of course, sports wins over the arts. I was sorry because we wanted to do it very much to help Houston, Puerto Rico and Mexico.” Even so, “impossible” is not a word associated with Domingo and his storied career. Opera as it is in L.A., and particularly at the Music Center, for instance, would have seemed impossible 50 years ago. The last week alone it was possible to hear six operas — from the 17th century through this minute — on and around the campus, with a pair of Baroque operas brought by Les Arts Florissants, a pair of operas presented by the L.A. Phil (Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole” and the premiere of Annie Gosfield’s “War of the Worlds”), and L.A. Opera’s productions of “Nabucco” and Keeril Makan’s recent work based on the Bergman film “Persona.” In most other places, that would be called a festival. In L.A. what was once unthinkable pre-Domingo is almost becoming normal. mark.swed@latimes.com

[hungry-like-virginia-woolf]

Stars, sunrise and crybaby for the ask thingy~ 🌼

That’s so sweet, thank you :) 

stars (when did you last cry in front of another person) - I cried in front of my bf last night cos we had a fight and he stormed out but came back two minutes later cos he bumped into another guy who’d just broken up with his girlfriend and was miserable about it so I guess the stars aligned in that one lol. Plus we were watching Gavin and Stacey later on and I cried at that too cos I’m a sap.

sunrise (pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally) - I’m writing an essay about Gone Girl at the moment and that entire Cool Girl quote just sums up what the oppression of white western women entails to me (i.e. be everything a man could possibly want while also being everything society could possibly want etc etc). Like, it’s not the worst oppression in the world, but it still sucks and it prevents us from finding healthy, mutually beneficial relationships which, you know, is sad.

crybaby (list the concerts you have been to and talk about how they made you feel) - yikes lol

boyzone and eoghan quigg - it was the year I was obsessed with the x factor and I HAD to see him and it wasn’t great lol but I have a very clear memory of Stephen Gately singing Single Ladies b/c he died that year I think? Also I remember Ronan Keating saying something like, ‘They say it takes a real man to wear pink. Well, it takes a real man to come to a Boyzone concert.’

Okay so don’t judge but I saw the X Factor tour (2008), diana vickers supporting JLS and THEN diana vickers on her own in scala b/c I was in LOVE with her, still am probably, anyway she was amazing, her stage presence is incredible and I still love her music very much although it’s not quite my thing anymore. Plus scala was like my first night out and it was over 18s only but I got in even though I was fourteen, I had a really nice blue dress and my sister did my eyeliner and I’d literally never felt prettier so a good night all around.

Leona lewis - I am so BLESSED a more beautiful voice has never existed her vocals were so sweet they brought tears to my fucking eyes and the OUTFIT CHANGES i was living.

Evanescence - haha sad story I asked a couple of my friends and they rejected me (it was my birthday btw) but a good concert, although I got a little pissed off at the end cos Amy said ‘thanks so much for coming to see me!’ and i was like, ‘You’re in a band, babes,’ so I didn’t really listen to them much after that although as a former emo ‘My Immortal’ still has a special place in my heart

one direction (twice) - yeah i saw wwa and otra and it was...interesting, idk, i was too far away and i couldn’t really see them but it was awesome, i was dancing like mad next to some five year olds and some old ladies, nice spectrum of humans :)

atl and ymas on valentine’s day - ahhh so I got the tickets like two days before b/c i was sad about being single for Reasons and it cheered me up so much, especially cos ymas played a lot of their old songs and quite a few of my favourites, great night

the coronas - hands down the BEST so far me and my bf were right at the front of the mosh pit and the lead singer kept looking right at us and I’m a new fan so i didn’t know many of the words and i could see he was, like, fondly judging (it was obvious I was there for my bf, he was belting it out) and then the one song that I did know the words to was a love song me and him used to listen to while we were falling in love and the singer saw i was singing along to that and i s2g he smiled right at me, he’s literally matty healy on double the cocaine, it was the most intense experience of my life.

lost avenue - idk if it counts but it’s an up and coming band from Derry and my bf’s mates with the lead man so we went to the bar they were playing in, and they’re full-on screamo it was weird but amazing and there were all these old men with blue and green beards and studded leather jackets haha

AND another derry band, suzie blue, saw them in Bennigans at an open mic night when it was just me and them in the bar so I really hope they get famous cos that’s a great story

and finally, I saw SOAK, also at Bennigans, on the night I smoked my first cigarette, sitting in the same spot i met my boyfriend for the first time a week later, and she was wonderful, she’s actually a big deal now, I think, but it was a tiny crowd and she just filled the entire wee room with her voice, and she’s TINY, I went up to her afterwards to tell her I loved her and she was like half my size but i was completely starstruck

I think that’s it (it’s probably not), thanks so much, I just got to relive some of the best moments of my life, you’re sound :) xx