THIS CRITIC DID NOT ADDRESS THE SINGERS PERFORMANCES WITH MORE DETAIL! NOT A SMART THING TO DO IF YOU ARE REVIEWING OPERA OR OTHER MUSIC FOCUSED PERFORMANCES! N.Y. TIMES: Spotted in a Chic Sand Dune, a Well-Dressed ‘Così’ - Dudamel Leads Mozart’s Opera With a Zaha Hadid Set - by Zachary Woolfe LOS ANGELES — Somewhere, somehow, Gustavo Dudamel has become an opera conductor. Two years ago, when he led his Los Angeles Philharmonic in “Don Giovanni” to kick off a cycle of the three operas Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mr. Dudamel, then 31, seemed inexperienced and off his form. He and the orchestra were relegated to a position far above and behind the singers. With his back to the stage, he struggled to keep the music together. The sound was full — and bland. But on Friday evening, conducting the first of four performances of “Così Fan Tutte” at Walt Disney Concert Hall to complete the trilogy, he was calmly and completely in command. Pared down to Classical intimacy, the orchestra was now at the front of the stage, a bit left of center, and Mr. Dudamel seemed bolstered by his closeness to the action. Ensembles unfolded precisely; the musicians breathed with the singers in arias. Mr. Dudamel’s take on the score was both poetic and propulsive, as in the quietly lapping accompaniment to the soaring trio “Soave sia il vento.” At one point, he even genially contributed a line of sung recitative in a resonant baritone, and he built the finale, through its several episodes, with logic and exuberance. The playing had the same crispness it did in “Don Giovanni,” but now with more purpose and character, setting a palpable mood in passages like the gentle, misty start of the garden scene that ends Act 1. That scene, like the rest of this “Così,” takes place here, elegantly if unconvincingly, on a stylized, immaculate white dune designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. A grandly curving swoop, it looks like an overgrown model for one of Ms. Hadid’s buildings, snugly wedged into the hall’s blond wood stage. Thanks to undergirding that moves like giant bellows, the dune’s contours morph as if gusts of wind were working over the sand. “Così” is set on the Italian coast, but the shape of Ms. Hadid’s ingenious, puzzling set is more Sahara than seaside. What has brought it to Los Angeles? The marketing-friendly idea for the Philharmonic’s Mozart-Da Ponte cycle was that each of the three operas would be designed by a famous architect (décor) and a famous fashion designer (costumes). The formidable lineup of designers eager to work on this cycle testifies to the Philharmonic’s continued status as the most adventurous major orchestra in the country, as well as to the energy and resources with which it has pursued ambitious events designed to draw new audiences — particularly the kind that know who Zaha Hadid is. That the cast was more appealing than shattering is telling. Mr. Gilfry made the strongest impression, along with the bass-baritone Philippe Sly’s clear, charismatic Guglielmo and the soprano Rosemary Joshua, lively as Despina. The soprano Miah Persson (Fiordiligi) sounded creamy, particularly in a poised “Per pietà.” Two lighter voices, the tenor Alek Shrader (Ferrando) and the mezzo Roxana Constantinescu (Dorabella), made less of an impact. CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE REVIEW! nytimes/2014/05/26/arts/music/dudamel-leads-mozarts-opera-with-a-zaha-hadid-set.html?hpw&rref=arts
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 00:30:41 +0000
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