Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Placido Domingo as Pablo Neruda in LA Opera's forthcoming Il Postino Photo: Art Streiber/LAO 2010

1) In celebration of the company’s 25th Anniversary season that starts on September 23rd, the Los Angeles Opera is having a one-day spectacular sale on Wednesday, August 25. Tickets to all performances in the 10/11 season are 25% off by following this link. As I’ve mentioned previously, this is a great season, and this may be the most economical chance to get seats for next year. Don’t miss the all-star Lohengrin, Il Turco in Italia or the world premiere of Catán's Il Postino (above) in particular.

2) Voting is now open for Gramophone Magazine’s 2010 artist of the year, which you can conveniently do online. You’ve got many great choices, but you should vote for the now video-blogging Joyce DiDonato whose career has gone red-hot this year after some incredible singing and stellar perseverance.

3) And on a sad note, Orange County Register classical music critic Tim Mangan notes on his blog, Classical Life, that he too has been “reassigned.” Did he have too many negative things to say about a local arts organization? Sadly, the culprit in this case is not simply his employer's lack of ethical standards. Mangan notes that starting in mid-September he’ll be writing a daily celebrity news column and only dabbling in classical music when the powers that be decide it must be done. Apparently, the potential subscribers of the OCR have spoken and they’d rather read about Mel Gibson or whoever than thoughtful, well-written arts criticism, so it looks like they're going to get what they want. Meanwhile, U.S. print news organizations continue to make the same bad decisions that got them into this mess in the first place. Good luck, Tim.

And as it appears that there is more of a need for Out West Arts than ever before, I guess I’ll keep going. Until then...