LA Opera kicked off its new season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this weekend with a pair of classics. Saturday night delivered a visually odd but musically solid presentation of "Eugene Onegin," Tchaikovsky's take on the romantic tragedy by Pushkin. Sunday's matinee presented a fantastically entertaining performance of Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte," a sophisticated, slightly unsettling comedy of sexual manners.
LA Opera Season Launches with Mozart & Tchaikovsky
Virgin Unite's Rock the Kasbah Gala Benefits Youth, Education
Common, Colbie Caillat, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Robin Thicke, Taryn Manning and Justin Long were among the stars who came out to support Richard and Eve Branson's 4th Annual Rock the Kasbah fundraiser for Virgin Unite at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday night.
Pencil This In: Celebrating Christmas Eve, Hanukkah
It’s a quiet night around town tonight, but here are a few options if you feel like venturing out:
Pencil This In: Tuesday Night
FASHION: Inside Project Runway hits Beverly Hills tonight. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the production, the catfights and, oh yeah, the fashion. Heidi Klum will be there, and organizers promise a few surprise guests. (The main auditorium is sold out, but a few tickets remain for the overflow theatre.) 7 pm // The Paley Center for Media // 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills // $7 for closed-circuit viewing room. OPERA:The LA Opera brings...
In LA even trees wear makeup
Last night I was out with my family going to dinner in downtown when we noticed the Christmas Tree was already up at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. They had a cherry picker going applying decorations. We walked over to check out out, and what did we see? Paint. 40 Gallons of Green Paint. I guess they could not find a tree just that right shade of green for Los Angeles. More pictures after the...
Get Your Lit On: The Week in Bookish LA
David Mamet & Howard Norton sign their new books 7pm @ Dutton’s Brentwood
TV Junkie: Xmas Weekend Edition
Hope for DVDs in your stockings and lots of trips to your cinema center - this weekend and next week will be reruns of just about everything including late night programming. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to be spending time with people you love or like or something. Today - Saturday College Basketball is scattered all over the tube from morning 'til night. "A Christmas Carol" (TCM, 11:00 a.m.) This is...
On Riding the Subway Before & After Culture
I call it Performance Row. That stretch downtown along Grand Avenue between Temple St. and the California Plaza. You can easily walk between 9 performance spaces in 5 minutes. Starting at the Music Center Plaza at Temple and heading South, you first are at the Ahmanson, Center Theatre Group's (CTG) proscenium stage that is used for dance, musicals and other traditional performances. Next is the Mark Taper Forum, a theatre used for newer theatrical...
365 Days/365 Plays: In the beginning. Ellipses.
Excerpt from Day 2 (Nov. 16): Father Comes Home From The Wars (Part 1) Father: Hi honey, Im home. Mother: Yr home. Father: Yes. Mother: I wasnt expecting you. Ever. Father: Should I go back out and come back in again? Mother: Please. We're going to say this right now and get it over with: get off your arses and participate in this yearlong national theatre festival. which is being held simultaneously around the...
Stars fall on Alabama Saturday
Xmas shopping procrastinators rejoice: Amoeba Records opens early (10am) and doesn't close until 8:30pm tonight.
Mash of the Titans
As if there's no greater proof that there's a higher power at work in LA, may we draw your attention to the fact that Oliver Stone & David Corn will be conversing about politics tonight 7 PM at the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Westwood, while across town four past governors of California will discuss whether California is governable at 7:00 p.m. in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center.
Grand Plans
The Grand Avenue Committee invites "you to join us and to learn of our progress in preliminary planning of the Grand Avenue project which aims to transform LA’s downtown, stimulate reinvestment in the community and create a new civic and cultural heart of the city for all Angelenos."

