The Metropolitan Opera, with its vast library of filmed performances, has been able to make many of them available for free streaming. Los Angeles Opera, a much younger organization, doesn’t have the same library to utilize. So they came up with something different: Living Room Recitals by a mix of opera stars and up-and-coming artists for LA Opera: At Home.
The Living Room Recitals take place on Thursdays. With today’s recital by tenor Ashley Faatoalia, LA Opera will have presented over 40 recitals from the artist’s living rooms. Most of these recitals are still available for viewing. His recital takes place at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT.
Faatoalia is from Los Angeles and has performed locally in Invisible Cities from Yuval Sharon and The Industry; Candide with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Festival Play of Daniel with LA Opera.
His repertoire for this recital will include spirituals, art songs and arias. That’s one of the things that’s great about this series, the artists get to pick and choose what they will perform. And with whom they perform. Louise Thomas serves as Faatoalia’s accompanist.
Last week, mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven sang music by African American composers Florence Price, Leslie Adams and Charles Brown in addition to some classic arias.
Soprano Ana María Martínez sang music by Dvorak and Spanish songs in her recital. She performed in Hector Berlioz’s Carmen, Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo and Manuel Penella Moreno’s El Gato Montes with LA Opera. She is slated to be part of LA Opera’s production of Don Giovanni scheduled for early next year. The status of that production is unknown as of press time.
Tenor Russell Thomas, who appeared in Mozart’s The Clemency of Titus and sang the title role of Otello in concert at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil, performed works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Pietro Mascagni, Samuel Barber and Verdi.
Soprano Guanqun Yu, who has also appeared in The Clemency of Titus and was scheduled to appear in The Marriage of Figaro this year, performed a recital that included works by Claude Debussy, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin. She is scheduled to be part of LA Opera’s production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore next fall.
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee performed works by Marc Blitzstein, Gabriel Fauré and Tyshawn Sorey. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 in Gioachino Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He and bass-baritone Eric Owens performed a very memorable concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2019.
Bass Morris Robinson performed works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert and Verdi. He has appeared with LA Opera in productions of Rigoletto, Satyagraha by Philip Glass and is scheduled to appear in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the abbreviated 2020-2021 season. We’ll have to see if any productions go forward this season. He is also to be in Il Trovatore and Wagner’s Tannhäuser at LA Opera next fall.
Tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz has appeared in Verdi’s Rigoletto and Macbeth, El Gato Montes and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with LA Opera. He has performed all over the world after winning the 2005 Operalia Competition.
Soprano Angel Blue, who so memorably sang the role of Bess in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, started her recital with a moment of silence in acknowledgement of the turmoil the country was facing at the time of her performance. She was announced as part of the cast of this season’s Il Trovatore by Verdi. When the schedule was revised, she was no longer attached to the production.
Each and every recital (and there are far more than are listed here) allows you not just to hear and see great music, but you also get to act out some voyeuristic tendencies and see how all the performers live.
These are not slickly-produced recitals. In fact, the rawness of them makes them even more interesting and impressive. Plus there is no charge to watch them.
One additional advantage is the ability to watch the recital live as it happens or to be able to go back and watch it later. It is worth noting that some of the recitals are no longer available due to rights issues. At press time, I counted only four of the recitals shown on the LA Opera at Home pages as being unavailable.
There is other programming available as part of Los Angeles Opera At Home. I encourage you to check it out. They are also rolling out a new program called Digital Shorts that will pair performances of works by such composers as Matthew Aucoin, David Lang, Missy Mizzoli, Ellen Reid, Sorey and Du Yun with animators, filmmakers and choreographers. As we get more details on that program, we’ll be sure to share them with you.
Each week there is new programming added. If you’re missing being at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles or any other opera house around the world, I think it is worth taking some time to explore LA Opera at Home and have some Living Room Recitals in your own home.
Photo of Ashley Faatoalia singing at a MUSE/IQUE concert courtesy of his website.