L.A. Opera launched its 31st season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sept. 17 with a spectacular production of Giuseppe Verdi’s timely parable on political immorality, “Macbeth.”
Tony-Award-winner Darko Tresnjak directed this new version of the tragic saga of a real king of the Scots, who ruled in the 11th century.
Shakespeare rewrote it as a dark tragedy, which was different from the real history, and no one ever knew why.
The indefatigable Placido Domingo sang the title role, for the first time in the United States, and Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk played his loving wife and ruthless serial killer Lady Macbeth, and James Conlon conducted.
Domingo, now 75, may be approaching the twilight of his singing career, but the man is still an astonishing force of nature. One critic’s review of his performance was tepid, but I thought he sounded more than fine and so did the opening-night audience, who rewarded him with thunderous applause. There’s no doubt that beyond his artistic talent, Domingo has been the lodestar through three decades of opera in Los Angeles.
Following the performance, Domingo joined more than 400 gala guests on the Music Center Plaza where tables, draped in silver and black damask, held colorful towers of fresh fruit. Patina’s bill o’ fare included brussels sprout and duck comfit salad, braised beef, potato rissole, squash blossoms and baby fennel, topped off with Macbeth tartan butterscotch mouse and pecan meringue for dessert. The Henry Wine Group and Laetitia Vineyard and Winery generously donated the dinner wines.
Still full of energy, after two hours on stage, Domingo took the microphone to pay tribute to the major donors — Barbara Teichert, Joyce and Aubrey Chernick, Carol and Murray Grigor, Carla Sands of Blue Ribbon, L.A. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Music Center President Rachel Moore, Carol and Warner Henry, Diane Paul of L.A. Phil, Opera Ball Chair Mary Hayley and Selim Zilkha, Ann and Robert Ronus, Nanette and Keith Leonard, and especially the Milan Panic family of Pasadena, who underwrote the season opener for the 15th year.
Among the other attendees were Geneva and Chuck Thornton, Micah Yui and Sel Kardan, Allan Edmiston, Alicia and Ed Clark, Marguerite Marsh, Annette Ermshar and Dan Monahan, Cynthia and Phil Swan, Cheryl and David Scheidemantle, Alyce, Ruth, Robin and Carolyn Williamson, Charles Souw and Bill Maldonado, Carol and Murray Grigor, Marilyn Ziering and Howard Walker, Michelle and Rupert Hemmings. Kathy and Frank Baxter, Lenore and Bernard Greenberg and Barbara and Zev Yaroslavsky. Celebs in the crowd included Chilean literary lioness Isabel Allende, and actress Kate Walsh.
Hayley reports that the evening raised nearly $1.1 million.
pattdiroll@charter.net
