Month: May 2025

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Boulez, Bartok, and Debussy at Disney Hall

Gordon and I went to our last concert of the season at Disney Hall last night. Esa-Pekka Salonen guest conducted a Boulez, Bartok, and Debussy program. The first Boulez was a series of selections from Notations. The pianist was Pierre-Laurant Aimard. The piece opened with a spot light on Airmant and expanded to include a HUGE orchestra when they came in. I don’t really get Boulez. It was a lot of sound and it only took eleven minutes so I stayed with it but it’s new music. You know, clank tinkle crash. I’ve never learned what to listen for.

I enjoyed Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3 much more. Aimard made that knuckle-buster look easy and it finished with a bang. Lots of fun. I got a kick out of the fact that Mr. Airmard sat with some friends in the orchestra like a regular person. Guess he wanted to enjoy the rest of the show. People applauded lightly when he sat and he graciously nodded but that was it. Nice touch.

DeBusy’s La mer was the final piece before intermission. Loved it, of course. It made the Boulez worth it. But after intermission was another Boulez piece. I read the program notes to see if the experts could explain it to me ,but it was all polymetric this and sequential that. I concluded that this piece was more math than music. Various parts of the orchestra sat around the hall. We had the flutes behind us and reeds to the left of us. The sound bounced all over and kept me alert. The piece also included The L.A. Dance Project. The choreographer was named Millepied which I translated to Thousand Feet. That’s an appropriate name for a choreographer. The dancers were wonderful but I don’t know how they kept it together with all the other moving pieces. The program said that each performance was different and sometimes all the moving pieces didn’t end together. O-kay. As I said; math, not music. Esa-Pekka wore a Charlie Chaplin Little Tramp suit with one black and white glove and one red one. I have no idea what that signified. It was an interesting piece but I’ve never been good at math. I didn’t understand it but I didn’t fall asleep either. Gordon stayed awake too so that means it was compelling.

Anyway, it was a nice way to spend an evening. Particularly since the internet went out at 4 pm and we had no TV, no Alexa, no nothing. The silence was deafening. It was still off when we got home so we went to bed early. I didn’t realize what a TV habit we had. I think we should start weaning ourselves off.   I don’t like much that’s on anyway.

On to next season!

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Life of Pi

Gordon and I went to the Ahmanson last night to see Life of Pi. I didn’t want to go. I was tired, cranky, and getting over a cold. The last thing I wanted to do was fight my way through a crowd of art farts . But we’d paid for the tickets and we can’t waste a thing. When we got to our seats, we found a compass and a ‘thank you’ note for our contributions to the Center Theater Group. I was surprised to see the box still in our seats. We used to get chocolates– at least most of the time. Once our chocolates got taken, along with our seats, by an entitled mamma. She put her kids in our seats and suggested that the kids should stay there because they preferred them to the ones they’d paid for. I declined the offer to take lesser seats. We ended up calling an usher. Boy, the chutzpa of the Great Entitled in Los Angeles can be breathtaking. Anway, the compass was supposed to guide us back to the theater or something like that. It actually works although I don’t know what we’ll use it for. Cute freebie but I think I’d get more use out of a Tshirt. Maybe I’ll suggest it.

Back to the show. Life of Pi is about trauma and the resilience of the human spirit. I won’t reveal any more of the plot because I don’t want to spoil it for potential theater goers so I’ll just say I think there’s a little Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, in all of us. That’s what allows us to survive. I found it very moving. I’d seen the movie and wasn’t sure how they’d pull things off. The sets and FX were amazing and the actors were all good, But the stars of the show were the puppets. It was enthralling. The only thing that spoiled it was the idiot woman next to me who turned on her phone to check her messages in the middle of the first act. When I put my hand up to block the glare (I made sure she saw my glare) she took the hint and turned the damn thing off. God, I hate the Great Entitled. I’m going to try to get seats away from her next season.

Anyway, go see it. It’s an experience. I believe in Richard Parker! ROAR!