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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Dvořák and Bruckner

Martin Chalifour

May 5–7, 2023
111 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Philippe Jordan, music director of the Vienna State Opera, unleashed a firestorm last fall when he declared that opera in the age of the almighty stage director has gone off the rails. From his previous experience in the same capacity at the Paris Opera and as a guest at the Bayreuth Festival, Jordan knows all too well whereof he speaks. His Vienna contract expires in 2025; from then on, expect to see much more of him in international concert halls. That’s the good news. In his program with the LA Phil, the orchestra’s principal concertmaster Martin Chalifour steps up as soloist in the ravishing Dvořák Violin Concerto. Then, it’s on to Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, which was dedicated to Richard Wagner’s great patron and enabler, mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Of all Bruckner’s mystically inflected symphonies, this was the one his contemporaries most took to heart, and future generations have for the most part done the same. —Matthew Gurewitsch

Photo courtesy of LA Phil