Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester

There’s no irony quite like German irony. It’s that special blend that can bewilder Americans in particular over what appears to be a highly contrasting mix of admiration and a far more arch critique of the subject at hand. Take Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester who returned to Southern California this week including a performance at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Thursday. It was classic Raabe. The dapper and droll bandleader dressed in formal evening wear croons to popular songs of the 1920s and 30s with his similarly period orchestra. The songs couldn’t be more familiar including “Happy Days Are Here Again,” “Dream A Little Dream” and “Falling In Love Again.” They are performed in jazzed up arrangements that are still surprisingly unadorned and simple by contemporary standards. Raabe accompanies everything in a lithesome falsetto. In between numbers his stilted delivery of witty understatements acts as a bridge between songs from Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and even Kurt Weil. Many of the songs are performed in German emphasizing the cultural perspective of the ensemble. There are flashes of humor and even slapstick in the set which involves 12 other band members and it is all splendidly done.

But the point of it all remains tantalizingly elusive. Max Raabe, a character played by the groups leader, is clearly musical and highly educated about the musical period their songs come from. Yet at the same time, the detailed reproduction of costumes and physical gestures and mannerisms implies a larger project. There is more going on here than nostalgia. Yet at the same time, Raabe and his players never break the spell more than to give a glance that tells you there's something more. There is a subtle knowing wink in these songs of romantic love from a culture markedly different from the one we now know. Granted this is a feeling that audiences can decide to love or hate. But it is unquestionably unique and it might just be brilliant as well. I love Max Raabe and his orchestra precisely because there is something decidedly unwholesome about something that on the surface seems just the opposite. The show at UCLA, the third the band has done here, was a highlight of the UCLA performing arts season and it was sad to see it end.

Labels: UCLA Live 09/10

Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester returned to Royce Hall on Thursday as part of the remains of the UCLA Live performing arts series. Since the departure of former artistic director David Sefton in 2010, the series has lain fallow with little more than return appearances by a handful of annual favorites like David Sedaris, Ute Lemper, and Raabe. (Allegedly the organization also passed on presenting the upcoming revival of Glass' Einstein on the Beach that will be seen at Cal Performances in October after a stint at BAM in New York.) The good news is that incoming artistic director Kristy Edmunds has taken over and will unveil the first season under her leadership this summer with what I’m told will be some exciting early plans. One hopes she can revive this moribund organization, and certainly everyone in the performing arts community in Los Angeles wishes her the best for what I’m sure will be a big challenge. Max Raabe's appearance harkened back to the heydays of Sefton's tenure here and even though the program itself felt mostly recycled from the group's last outing it was great to have them back with their particular brand of nostalgia for the popular music of a century ago.

Now in their 25th year, the group still stays true to its successful formula: big band favorites of the late 1920s and 30s delivered with a mix of sincerity and ironic humor. Raabe and his players are all dressed in dapper evening wear of the period with most of the songs played in their original German language. There are familiar standards by the likes of Cole Porter alongside novelty tongue-in-cheek hits about asparagus and Salome. And though the staging evokes Weimar culture, the performance on the whole rests squarely in an ironic awareness of the present. The outdated and comparatively tame lyrics of the songs are funny precisely because of their contrast to what the audience knows of the modern world. This is more than nostalgia or kitsch. The commitment and level of musicianship allude to something more than just that.

Raabe and his high tenor are one of the attractions of the group. Over the years, the lightness and ease of some of the top notes has diminished, but his sound overall is still quite pleasant. His halting delivery is still razor sharp with turns of phrase that veer this way and that unexpectedly. And he knows how to deliver a song. His insightful, melancholic version of Nena's "Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann" with only piano accompaniment was a highlight of the evening. Of course all of the band members are multi-instrumentalists and everyone gets into the act as a soloist sooner or later. If there was any difference between this outing and the group's 2010 appearance, it was the larger, more often oddly costumed crowd. In Los Angeles, it's can be difficult to tell when people are in costume and when they aren’t. Poor fashion sense is a badge of honor. And there was an explosion of women in flapper dresses with headbands and men who stepped out of Cabaret on Thursday. But no matter. It was still funny, still charming, and still a very good time.

Labels: UCLA Live 11/12

from The Wooster Group's North Atlantic
Photo: Paula Court

Except for the periodic stray rain shower, February is one of my favorite months in L.A. It’s freezing everywhere else, but here it's sunny, relatively warm, and you can see the days start to get longer. It’s also a great month for music around town with performances from a variety of esteemed guests. Perhaps one of the most exciting visitors at Walt Disney Concert Hall next month will be the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly who'll appear on the 17th in an all-Beethoven program. Meanwhile, in the non-Beethoven department, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra returns on the 3rd and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will team up with Alarm Will Sound and Brooklyn’s own Dirty Projectors on the 27th. And perhpas most near and dear to my heart, Max Raabe and the Palast Orcheter will return for "A Night in Berlin" at UCLA's Royce Hall on the 18th.

Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester

Speaking of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, they’ll be performing with three conductors who’ve proven they know how to marshal a great performance out of our wonderful orchestra on many memorable previous occasions. Herbert Blomstedt will lead a Haydn and Beethoven (again!) program over the weekend of the 6th. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos will bring us Ravel and Schumann over the weekend of the 13th. But don't miss, Charles Dutoit who will serve up more Ravel and Stravinsky’s Petrushka on the weekend of the 20th. And if you’re in the mood for more Petrushka, puppeteer extraordinaire Basil Twist will present his version of the famous ballet at the Broad stage starting on the 4th. If it’s newer music you’re looking for, the Monday Evening Concert Series will present an evening dedicated to Mauricio Kagel on the 22nd. The L.A. Philharmonic’s New Music Group will also offer a “Green Umbrella” program on the 2nd to include Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire with Kiera Duffy and a rare performance of Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King.

Dirty Projectors

On stage the big event will be the return of the Wooster Group to REDCAT as part of their ongoing residency at downtown’s most adventurous theatrical site. Elizabeth LeCompte and her troupe will revive North Atlantic starting on the 10th. REDCAT will also welcome Chilean troupe Teatro En El Blanco with a work entitled Diciembre on the 24th. Far less experimental, but perhaps just as interesting will be the Mark Taper Forum’s new production of The Subject Was Roses starring Martin Sheen and Frances Conroy which kicks off on the 10th. And if you just can’t get enough of it, Dreamgirls will return again to the Ahmanson on the 24th. In the city’s great smaller theaters there are two particularly exciting offerings this month. The Blank Theater will open the local premiere of Christopher Durang’s comedy Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them. The title says it all. But let’s not forget about the good news in theater coming from Pasadena: Boston Court Theater who will start their year of four world premiere’s with Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey on the 27th.

It’s an at home month for me and the only out of town moment I’m going to get is also the month’s only new opera offering down in San Diego where the local company's markedly reduced 2010 season will premiere Verdi’s Nabucco with Richard Paul Fink on the 20th. That should about cover it until March.

Labels: In the Wings

February in L.A. is one of those months that reminds me why I love it here. The weather of course is one thing. Some fantastic programming announced by the L.A. Phil for next season is another. (More on that a little later.) But as usual, it’s particularly busy on the performance scene around town so here’s what I recommend you get to. There’s an awful lot of opera on the menu this month led first and foremost by L.A. Opera’s production of Simon Boccanegra which opens February 11th with the company’s general director Placido Domingo in the title role. James Conlon will conduct Verdi’s late masterpiece as he will the other offering LAO will kick off on the 25th, Britten’s Albert Herring. This very British comedy about politics and morality stars young tenor Alek Shrader and will also include two performances in the run from Christine Brewer on March 14th and 17th. Meanwhile San Diego Opera will present the West Coast premiere of Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick which won accolades for its star tenor, Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab, in the show’s world premiere in Dallas in 2010. Further our of town there’s a few other items to consider. The Metropolitan Opera will revive Mussogsky’s Khovanshchina on the 27th with a primarily Russian cast under the incoming Bavarian State Opera music director Kirill Petrenko. And in Chicago, the Lyric Opera will present a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo with David Daniels and the very exciting Iestyn Davies starting on the 29th. And if you’re in town you may also want to see the company’s thoughts on Jerome Kern's Show Boat which will open on the 12th complete with Nathan Gunn. And if you won't be close to New York, there are two Metropolitan Opera HD broadcasts to check out including Wagner's Götterdämmerung on the 11th and Verdi's Ernani starring Angela Meade on the 25th.

The L.A. Philharmonic is out of town for much of the month playing yet ore Mahler in Venezuela until they return to their home stage on the 23rd with Charles Dutoit with music of Debussy and Prokofiev, but there are plenty of other exciting music events around town. The Los Angele Master Chorale will present Bruckner’s Mass in E minor and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms on the 14th in on of their most anticipated performances of the spring. And while not coming to L.A., the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be on tour with Riccardo Muti in Orange County where they’ll play Franck and a new work from composer-in residence Mason Bates before moving on to San Diego. And contemporary music will be front and center about everywhere else from REDCAT where the CalArts players will do a two-day John Cage festival on the 15th and 16th in honor of the composers 100th birthday anniversary. Mx Justin Vivian Bond will bring an evening of cabaret to the same venue immediately after this on the 17th, 18th, and 19th. Monday Evening Concerts will continue its season at Zipper Hall downtown on the 27th with Norwegian ensemble asamisimasa and Reinbert de Leeuw will be joined by Louis Andriessen’s muse Crstina Zavalloni for an evening of the composers works at WDCH on the 28th including the U.S. premiere of Anaïs Nin. L.A.'s Formalist Quartet will perform the music of Johann Johannsson at the Masonci Lodge on Hollywood Forever on the 9th, but if you can’t make it, you can listen to them play some of the material streaming at KCRW where they played live on the 8th. Oh and you won’t want to miss out on the latest performance sponsored by People Inside Electronic’s Aron Kallay and Isaac Schankler present “Nothing is Real” a night of new piano works on Pico Blvd on the 11th.

Camerata Pacifica will present their latest program starting on the 9th at Zipper Hall downtown as well with a program to include the music of John Harbison and Bright Sheng while Jacaranda Music will have an evening of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Schnittke on the 18th in Santa Monica. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will be joined by the USC Thornton Chamber Singers for one night only in Pasadena on the 25th where Jeffrey Kahane will lead Bach’s Magnificat. And there are a number of other solo and recital performances as well from Leif Ove Andsnes at WDCH on the 8th, Ryan Adams in the same hall for two sold out shows on the 17th and 18th, and Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester at UCLA’s Royce Hall on the 23rd. Oh and Fado singer Ana Moura will be at The Broad Stage on the 17th as well just to make your decision a bit more challenging.

Theater-wise, my pick for the month is Argentina’s Mariano Pensotti who will arrive at REDCAT with the very ambitious and large scale El pasado es un animal grotesco which will run from the 23rd through the 26th. In Pasadena the Theater @ Boston Court will start another season of all world premieres with The Treatment, a dance based narrative work. Orange County’s South Coast Repertory will continue its run of Molly Smith Metzler‘s Elemeno Pea trough the 26th. There' a number of other fine shows running well into the month to consider too including the excellent production of Our Town at The Broad Stage that will close on the 12th and Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park that is continuing at the Mark Taper Forum throught the 26th. Of course what you do from here is entirely up to you.

Labels: In the Wings