Music

Patti LuPone

• By Ken Werther

Four words that excite: Patti LuPone in concert! Thanks to LA Opera, the legendary Broadway star is bringing her new show, A Life in Notes, to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for one night only on Saturday, April 20, with musical director Joseph Thalken. She returns to the DCP stage after her acclaimed performances in LA Opera productions of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (2007) and The Ghosts of Versailles (2015). A Life in Notes will include an array of songs that are touchstones and reflections on her life. She is truly not to be missed. I recommend getting your tickets the moment you finish reading this story!

LuPone’s list of stage credits truly boggles the mind. On Broadway, she created the role of Eva Perón in Evita and she has also starred in productions of The Robber Bridegroom, Anything Goes, Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard, Oliver!, Working, Gypsy, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, War Paint, Company, Pal Joey, Annie Get Your Gun, Candide, Sunday in the Park with George, Passion, A Little Night Music, Noises Off, The Anarchist, The Old Neighborhood, Master Class, and oh, so many more! She has won three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame. Television work includes Life Goes On, American Horror Story, Pose, and Hollywood. Films include 1941, Witness, Driving Miss Daisy, Summer of Sam, State and Main, and, well, many more! 

For more, click here.

Antonio Sánchez

• By J. COOK

Do you recall the Academy Award for Best Picture ten years ago? It was Birdman! Very much Alejandro Iñárritu’s brainchild, starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts. To celebrate the film at the Wallis, 4-time GRAMMY® Award winner and internationally renowned jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez will take to the stage and recreate the score live to picture.

What is interesting about this is the nature of the way Sánchez composed the score originally—mostly via improvisation. This performance will be in the spirit of the film, also via improvisation, so very much unique, and with all the promise of being awesome. The picture very much feels like a riff, even ten years after its release. So what better way to revisit the film than with Sánchez’s musical creativity center stage? Show starts at 7:30. However…

Starting at 6 there is quite the pre-party going on at the Plaza inspired by the superhero theme of the film. East LA C.A.P.E (Comicbook, Art, and Pop Culture Expo) is putting on a pop up event with six curated artists showcasing and selling their work. Party-thrower DJ Chad Kenney (also a Tetris-Master on Twitch—bring your Gameboy?) will be mixing video game music (this will be brownie points with Grandkids). Installation artists Sparkle Set Portraits are creating a Birdman-meets-BroadStage backdrop for selfies for your ‘gram. Finally, local LA small business Darlings, The Feather Place, will have wings for sale for guests to dress the part. And, finally, Chicas Tacos will be back serving up their Mexi-Cali fare. Get there early!

For tickets, click here.

LA TRAVIATA

• By J. COOK

Who doesn’t like shows that open with a drinking song? Doing your big night out with friends, family, and/or loved ones, and curtain goes up…and just following an ominous prelude, the music switches to party music, which sets up just about the most infamous brindisi ever written. Cheers! Oh, and that ominous music that opened with the show… nevermind that. Or the fact that this is billed as one of the most infamous tragedies Verdi ever wrote. This is La Traviata! Going on at the LA Opera this month.

In brief, the opera concerns one Violetta Valéry, queen of Parisian nightlife, who is aware that it won’t last forever and is seeking to settle down once she can find true love. But the society that she for so long mastered and ruled over not only disapproves over her choice, but threatens to tear them apart. 

Playing the lead is Rachel Willis-Sørensen, who Opéra Magazine calls, “One of the most gifted singers of our era,” leads the show. As per use, James Conlon conducts one of opera’s most infamous tragedies in this new-to-L.A. production. 

An interesting note about the subject: The opera is based on a play, La Dame aux Camélias, by Alexandar Dumas, who adapted the play from his own book by the same title, but sometimes referred to just as Camille. So Traviata is an opera, based on a play, based on a book. See ya at the show!

For tickets and more details, click here.

Música

• By KENNE HOFFMAN

Riverdale’s Camila Mendes is Executive Producing and Staring alongside Rudy Mancuso in Amazon Studios new Rom-Com Música: Face the Music. Mancuso rose to fame thanks to the now-defunct platform Vine and has since become a successful creator across multiple platforms, including YouTube where he continued making comedy skits and started the channel Awkward Puppets and he appeared as an opener during Justin Bieber‘s Purpose World Tour. Mancuso wrote the script of “Música” with American Vandal‘s Dan Lagana, and composed the film’s original score and soundtrack. McG and Mary Viola will produce via their Wonderland Sound and Vision banner, with Shots Studios’ John and Sam Shahidi exec producing alongside Lagana, Wonderland’s Steven Bello, and Mendes.

Música is a coming-of-age love story following creator Mancuso’s character Rudy, a young Newark street artist, gifted with an extraordinary worldview living with synesthesia, a phenomenon causing the experience of multiple senses at once. Plagued by the music in his head, he faces an uncertain future. He also has to juggle his responsibilities to his family, his love life, and his Brazilian culture. Rudy is endowed with a rare condition: synesthesia, which enables him to perceive everyday noises, from horns to dripping water, as complex rhythms. This extraordinary ability has a profound influence on his music and his outlook on life. The film is loosely based on Mancuso’s own experiences growing up and finding success in spite of or because of living with synesthesia.

Música will premiere at SXSW 2024 before streaming on Prime April 4, 2024.

For more, click here.