Serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, and the Greater Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2011.

The “Tristan Project” at Walt Disney Concert Hall – December 9 – 17

Gustavo Dudamel conducts a rare revival of the “Tristan Project at Walt Disney Concert Hall December 9-17, 2022. (images from Laphil.com)

 

Powerful music meets stirring visual art in the return of this multimedia opera.

The “Tristan Project” was first performed here in 2004, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and acclaimed by the New York Times as a “multi media concept that listeners traveled long distances to catch it and talked about it for months.” It then traveled to New York and Paris. The Los Angeles Times called the groundbreaking multimedia experiment “the great Los Angeles artwork.”

Director Peter Sellars (image from Laphil.com)

Richard Wagner’s legendary opera Tristan and Isolde will be conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and directed by Peter Sellars with video by Bill Viola and a globally celebrated cast. The production also includes the Los Angeles Master Choral. A truly amazing group of outstanding talents.

I have known Peter and his enormous talent dealing with masterpieces both classical and contemporary since the 1984 Olympics, and this is what he said to me about this production – “Wagner’s prophetic vision for an immersive “total work of art” that engages all the senses and plunges deliriously into extrasensory realms enters new depths and dimensionalities in the searing and transcendent video installations created by Bill Viola and the acoustical and spatial miracles of Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.” Together Peter Sellars and Bill Viola employ 21st-century innovation to explore the psychological, spiritual and elemental themes of the Tristan and Isolde story, inspired by Wagner’s own desire to expand what opera could be.

Visual Artist Bill Viola (image from laphil.com)

Wagner’s retelling of the medieval legend of doomed lovers caused a revolution with its unprecedented musical innovation. Beginning with the very first notes, including the famed, unresolved “Tristan chord” the score expresses the tumultuous yearning of the characters through a continuous unfolding of richly colored harmonies which have made a profound impact on generations of composers. It will be presented twice with each act performed as a self-contained concert on consecutive dates.

A Multimedia Opera in Three Acts:
Friday, December 9 at 8 p.m. and Thursday, December 15 at 8 p.m. 
Act I: Two lovers set sail on the last voyage.

Saturday, December 10 at 8 p.m. and Friday, December 18 at 8 p.m. 
Act II: The endless night of perfect love.

Sunday, December 11 at 2 p.m. and Saturday, December 17 at 8 p.m. 
Act III: Leaving the world, entering the cosmic sublime.

Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at the LA Phil’s website.

We need a world that can transport us to astonishment about what we are able to create. The L.A. Phil gives us that world. How lucky we are!

 

Fire Woman (image from laphil.com)

 

PostScript: The L.A. Phil is also bringing us several holiday concerts:🤶🎄

A Holiday Sing-Along on December 3.

The Nutcracker with Dudamel: Tchaikovsky & Ellington on December 3, 4, 14 & 18.

A Chanticleer Christmas on December 13.

Home Alone in Concert on December 20-22.

Arturo Sandoval Swinging Holiday on December 23.

New Year’s Eve with The Roots on December 31, 2022.

 


Backstage with the Buzz is written by Sheila Tepper, Producer Cultural Programming. Sheila has lived in the Larchmont area for fifty years, among her passions have been passing legislation for children with disabilities and interviewing outstanding artists appearing in the Los Angeles area.

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