Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Mark Delavan, Anja Kampe, and Salvatore Licitra in Il Tabarro
Photo: Robert Millard/LAO 2008

It was a busy weekend and a friend rightly commented to me that in the interest of complete disclosure I should mention that I have now seen Los Angeles Opera’s production of Il Trittico three times. While this was not intentional, considering how much I dislike Puccini as a rule, it is remarkable. Needless to say, this production is the best thing LAO has offered up since last Fall’s Jenufa and, with perhaps the exception of Der Zwerg, it will likely be the single strongest offering from our local company this calendar year. I strongly encourage you to go if you haven’t yet.

I don’t have much new to say about last Thursday or Sunday’s performance over my original comments other than to note that this most recent performance was slightly marred by the illness of Laura Tatulescu, who stars as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi. She did marshal through the evening with apologies, however, and thankfully it's such a strong staging under the guidance of director Woody Allen and set designer Santo Loquasto that not too much weight is placed on her single performance. Probably the bigger highlights on Sunday came following the show when my partner Jeff was almost run down by an inattentive Salvatore Licitra in a silver Mustang as he charged out of the music center parking lot. How wrong is that? I mean if you’re going to get run down following this production, I would much prefer Radvanovsky in a Lexus or perhaps Delavan in a Prius. Just a thought.