Category: Music & Theater

The Ford also rises

A view from the Ford’s new stage shows performers’ perspective. Image/Levin & Associates

With environmental approval this week of a transformative plan for the county’s John Anson Ford Theatres, the historic hillside facility is poised to stage its biggest comeback act since a fire wiped it out early in the last century.

Just as the current Ford rose from the ashes of that 1929 blaze, the revamped amphitheatre is expected to retain its historic charms while being modernized and reimagined to serve new generations of concert-goers.

In approving the environmental impact report for the Ford on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors did not appropriate any funding for the project, which is intended to be built in phases.

However, thanks to previous appropriations from the 3^rd Supervisorial District and the county, money already is in place to achieve one of the master plan’s most ambitious components: completing all restoration work and improvements involving the amphitheatre itself.

The facility will close throughout 2015 in order to replace the outdated and unevenly-surfaced stage, modernize the decrepit backstage area, upgrade aging electrical and audio-visual systems, improve accessibility and reengineer the site’s scenic but mudslide-prone hillside.

The original Ford was destroyed in this October 24, 1929 brushfire. Photo/Herald Examiner Collection, L.A. Public Library

In addition, with $28.5 million in additional funding recently approved as part of the county’s supplemental budget, the scope of the construction has broadened to include soundwalls to buffer the noise from the 101 Freeway, an expansive terrace where up to 200 people can enjoy pre-concert picnics, and a two-level structure with a new concession area on the first floor and offices for the Ford staff above.

“By combining the previously approved work with the new projects, we will be able to save several millions of dollars in construction costs,” said Laura Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, which operates the Ford.

The current work—including earlier phases that involved developing the master plan and environmental impact report, replacing the amphitheatre’s seats and stripping away yellow paint to reveal its original concrete surface—has a total price tag of nearly $56.6 million.

Still to come in future years, once funding is identified, are a transportation plaza with a three-level parking garage, a restaurant, a 299-seat theatre and a ¾ mile-long hiking trail with majestic views of the Hollywood sign and other vistas.

Beyond new amenities, the work will address some longstanding problems that have plagued the 1,200-seat amphitheatre.

“It’s literally had mudslides going through it,” said Adam Davis, the Ford’s managing director of productions. “It’s kind of been neglected and this project is really going to help.”

The project’s architect, Brenda Levin, whose historic preservation work includes acclaimed projects at the Griffith Observatory, Wilshire Boulevard Temple and Dodger Stadium, said it is impossible to separate the Ford from its unique natural setting on county parkland in the Cahuenga Pass.

“The building itself is set deep into a canyon, and the canyon is very much part of the theatrical experience,” Levin said. “At the Ford you’re focused on the natural landscape, which will be maintained.”

By the time all the work described in the master plan is concluded, the public is likely to see the Ford and its surroundings in a dramatically different light, she said.

“I don’t think at this point that many people would describe the Ford as sitting in the middle of a 32-acre park,” Levin said. “I do think after this project is complete, they will totally understand that.”

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime backer of the facility since he was elected to the county Board of Supervisors in 1994, said the coming work will be a game-changer for the Ford. “During my tenure we have continually made incremental improvements, but this really takes it to the next level,” he said. Yaroslavsky, who is retiring from the Board of Supervisors later this year, predicted that when the amphitheatre reopens in the summer of 2016, patrons will be in for their “best-ever Ford Theatres experience.”

Over the past two decades, the Ford has forged a unique identity among Los Angeles concert venues through its “partnership program” showcasing local artists, and more recently with its annual “Zev Yaroslavsky Signature Series” that aims to draw new audiences with programming pairing nationally known performers with homegrown talent.

With the Ford closing for construction next summer, plans are underway to bring a series of performances into various communities around the county.

A new terrace will invite pre-concert picnicking. Image/Levin & Associates

Posted 10/8/14

Opera’s beach blanket bravura

A Roaring ’20s-era staging of “La Traviata” will be shimmying to the beach. Photo/Robert Millard

It’s not every day that the sublime vocal talents of Plácido Domingo share a place in the sun with funnel cakes, caricature artists and an iconic ocean-front Ferris wheel.

But the tourist-friendly charms of the Santa Monica Pier will be meeting the glories of opera at its grandest when LA Opera brings its first-ever free live simulcast to the beach on Wednesday, September 17.

The high-definition broadcast of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” beamed live via satellite from the stage of the county Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to a giant screen on the pier’s wooden parking deck, ushers in a new tradition for the company, which plans to offer the  program every other year.

“If I weren’t in the cast for this production, I’d want to be in the audience myself!” Domingo, the opera’s general director, said in a news release announcing “Opera at the Beach.”

Domingo is scheduled to sing the role of Giorgio Germont in a production that also includes soprano Nino Machaidze (as Violetta Valéry) and tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz (as Alfredo Germont), with LA Opera music director James Conlon conducting.

“La Traviata” tells the story of a glamorous courtesan and her doomed love affair; NPR once dubbed it “the original Pretty Woman.” It opens LA Opera’s 2014-15 season on Saturday, September 13, with the beach simulcast taking place at 7:30 p.m. the following Wednesday.

For the production team, turning a day at the beach into a night at the opera has had as many complications as the most byzantine libretto.

The pier has hosted concerts and movie premieres, but never an opera simulcast. Until now.

“It’s been a big challenge. There are other opera companies that routinely do simulcasts, and we’re not one of them. For us this is the first time,” said Rupert Hemmings, the opera’s senior director of production. “The off-site logistics involved with setting up the pier and getting all of the equipment at that end and then of course the actual transfer of the product by satellite—all of that is new to us. It has been a steep learning curve, but I think we have everything in place for a success.”

The 21-by-40-foot screen, elevated on a six-foot-high platform, will be angled toward the ocean at the end of the pier’s parking deck. Folding chairs and blankets are recommended for spectators, who will be sitting on the deck’s rough-hewn wood beams, as they do for Santa Monica’s popular Twilight Concerts series. Although there is no charge for admission, the opera strongly encourages those who wish to attend to pre-order tickets online. (There’s a $1 handling fee for each order of up to 8 tickets.)

No alcoholic beverages are allowed, but there will be a designated beer garden. And while the simulcast is free, parking isn’t—so be prepared and perhaps consider reserving a space in advance.

The opera, underwritten with funds made available by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, will be sung in Italian, with English translations superimposed on the screen during the simulcast.

With the advent of “Opera at the Beach,” L.A. joins a number of other cities where simulcasts have become a popular part of the cultural fabric, including San Francisco’s “Opera at the Ballpark” at AT&T Park and Washington, D.C.’s “Opera in the Outfield” at Nationals Park.

Whatever the locale, the name of the game is enticing new audiences to sample the art form, risk-free, while enjoying a communal event at a local landmark.

“I think that opera can be seen as elitist,” the opera’s Hemmings said. “I don’t feel it is, having been in it for most of my life, but I think when people can get out there and see this kind of thing for free—and see how much fun it is, and how emotionally stimulating it can be—that’s fantastic.”

In this 2010 photo, San Franciscans get their free opera fix at AT&T Park.

LA Opera’s simulcast of “La Traviata” starts at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 17, at the Santa Monica Pier. Free tickets are available here, and directions and parking information are here.

Posted 8/27/14

Good news for Bowl bottoms

Alaskan yellow cedar benches are going in at the Bowl, replacing old ones that have seated millions.

Consider the lot of the lowly Hollywood Bowl benches.

Every summer, they bear silent witness to sublime symphonies, cool jazz and the musical stylings of some of the biggest names in pop. They brave the elements year ‘round, and when the amphitheatre is in full swing, get up close and personal with some 14,000 rear ends a night (some shielded with cushions, others not so much.)

Is it any wonder that eventually even the staunchest Bowl bench starts to crack under all the pressure?

But relief is on the way for the current crop of benches, which were installed at the dawn of the Reagan Administration and have hosted more than 18 million backsides in their time.

Mark Ladd, the Bowl’s assistant director of operations, calls the bench replacement “a once-in-a-career project.”

“It’s exciting to see it get done,” Ladd said. “If you take a look at some of the older wood, you’ll see it’s overdue.”

Underwritten by Prop. A park improvement dollars and other funds made available by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the $1.6 million project is expected to wrap up in time for this year’s opening night on June 21. (Concertgoers for this year’s pre-season lease events like Black Sabbath, Billy Joel and Bruno Mars and Pharrell Williams will see a work in progress, with a mix of old and new benches available for seating.)

The benches are showing their age.

Beyond putting to rest the occasional splinter complaint, the new seats—which, like the earlier benches, are made of golden-hued Alaskan yellow cedar which will weather in time to a silvery gray—will be visually striking in their inaugural season.

And they’ll be widely used. While some music fans pony up for pricey box seats, the vast majority of Bowl patrons flock to the benches, where some weeknight concert tickets can be had for little as $1. (Another buck rents you a cushion for the night. For more on that and other tips for making the most of your Bowl experience, click here.)

The bench replacement project is part of a long list of improvements that have gone into the county-owned facility in recent years, including replacement of the legendary shell itself. New restrooms, park furniture to make it easier for more people to picnic at the site, “speed ramps” to whisk patrons to the Bowl’s upper levels, LED screens, a wine bar and a state-of-the-art sound system are among the upgrades in the just the past few seasons. (Industry professionals seem to be noticing; the Bowl recently nabbed its 10th straight Pollstar award as the nation’s best major outdoor concert venue.)

In addition to the new benches, this summer season will also be illuminated with new landscape lighting around the site, also funded by Yaroslavsky’s office. And the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which operates the Bowl under a lease agreement with the county, is replacing the stage floor, a maintenance procedure it undertakes every 10 years or so.

As construction workers buzzed around the site this week, assistant operations director Ladd noted that those venerable Bowl benches, installed back in 1981, may still not have reached the end of their long service to the people of Los Angeles County.

“We’re looking to re-use as much as we can,” Ladd said, pointing out that the wood can be re-milled and made available for repairs and future construction projects throughout the county parks system—an environmentally-friendly encore worthy of the Bowl itself.

The benches, last fully replaced in 1981, will eventually weather to the familiar silvery gray.

Posted 3/5/14