(Revised) OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Puccini's "Turandot" at Hollywood Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Puccini: Turandot
Sunday, July 17, 2011 • Hollywood Bowl
Next concert: Tuesday, July 19; Dudamel and LAPO: All Mozart
Info: www.hollywoodbowl.com
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Throughout the first half of its 90-year-history, Hollywood Bowl regularly produced a number of significant opera evenings and in the past two years, Gustavo Dudamel has done his best to revive that tradition. Last season it was with Bizet’s Carmen (my review is HERE). Last night it was Puccini’s final opera, Turandot.

Whenever an opera company stages Turandot, the tendency is to mount a grandiose affair with massive sets and lavish costumes (for a prime example, Google “Met Turandot” and take a gander at the photos from Franco Zeffirelli’s over-the-top production).

None of that was possible — nor, as it turned out, necessary — at the Bowl last night. The “set” was a platform behind and above the

Comments

[Dennis Bade]

I enjoyed reading your review, Bob, but I feel obliged to suggest that you correct TWO misspellings of the opera's title. In the second paragraph, it's the common slip all us quick typers have made: Turnadot. The headline, however, is more awkward: you have put a turd in Turdandot?!? (I laughed until I cried.)

[Bob Thomas]

Double aargh!! Thanks for catching them. I laughed, too.

[פרסום בגוגל]

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