The Belle Epoque was a “lovely period in human civilization,” says Lotfi Mansouri. In contrast, our own humble times are “the age of ugly.”

Twenty-first-century din will be temporarily transformed into a glittering era of pulchritude Saturday night when Los Angeles Opera debuts “The Merry Widow.” Director Mansouri created the grand production in 2001 as his farewell to the San Francisco Opera, and now unveils it for Los Angeles.

FineArtsLA spoke with Mansouri about his frothy production of the “Dom Pérignon of champagne operettas.”

FALA: How did this production originate? Is it the same production you did with San Francisco Opera?

LM: It is. I had been the general director of San Francisco Opera for 14 years, and had done over 70 productions with them. I was thinking of an appropriate way to exit in the 2001-2002 season, and decided to exit waltzing.

It was the right kind of production: Light with no sentimentality, none of the schmaltz you get with farewells, so I picked it and gave myself my favorite designers, including Michael Yeargan, who designed absolutely stunning sets. That’s how it generated. It was invited to Houston, and then LA Opera. (Continue)

This week the Getty debuts a new exhibit entitled “Radiant Darkness,” which is devoted to various artists’ renderings of light. Master bringer-of-light Johannes Vermeer is notably absent, no doubt because the Getty does not own one of the only 34 pictures attributed to him.

Saith the Getty: “For centuries artists have displayed their technical virtuosity by composing scenes in which light penetrates darkness. Beginning this month, the J. Paul Getty Museum presents ‘Radiant Darkness: The Art of Nocturnal Light,’ exploring the representation of light in darkness by artists from the 1400s to the 1600s, including Rembrandt van Rijn, Aert van der Neer, Hendrik Goudt and Giovanni Battista Gaulli called Baciccio. Radiant Darkness features 21 works of various media, divided into four thematic sections: divine light, candlelight, firelight, and moonlight.”

Pictured is Aert van der Neer’s “Moonlit Landscape” from 1647.

Either because Tin Pan Alley was running out of original melodies, or because songwriters secretly envied composers of serious music, it briefly became fashionable to turn well known classical themes into three-minute ballads.

Hence Rach 2 becomes “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto morphs into “Tonight We Love,” and Chopin’s Polonaise is miniaturized in “Till the End of Time.”

But even a progressive jazz musician like John Coltrane was not above raiding the classical canon for material, especially when a wistful tune like “Vilia” from Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” could serve as the perfect springboard for the saxophonist’s flights of fancy. (Continue)

In anticipation of LA Opera’s production of Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow,” which opens April 28, I’ll be running several Lehar-themed stories.

First off, I find a lazy Sunday is rarely complete without a few tunes from Lehar, and I keep recordings handly not just of “The Merry Widow” (the Cheryl Studer version), but also “The Land of Smiles,” “Giuditta” and “Der Zarewitsch.” They go well with a champagne breakfast.

Though “The Merry Widow” (1905) remains his most lasting work, it was composed quite early in Lehar’s career. Much of his oeuvre dates from after WW I, following a long dry period.

In 1922 Lehar discovered the young tenor Richard Tauber, who became his male muse. Lehar wrote six operettas for him between 1925 and 1934.

Here’s a documentary clip on Tauber (with temporary mysterious green rectangle):

Also of note:

Lehar brought a greater depth of expression to light opera than previous composers. “I stumbled blindly into writing operetta,” he said later in life, “without any idea of what I was doing, but this helped me to find my own style.”

Lehár’s work was enjoyed by Hitler, who awarded him the Goethe Medal. Lehár himself had a Jewish wife and his friend and sometime-librettist Fritz Lohner was killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. (From Wikipedia’s entry on Lehar.)

In 1935 he founded his own publishing company, Glocken Verlag, which still controls the rights to his work.

Edward Gardner’s baton is a ligtening rod seeking to draw “as much color and drama as possible” from the orchestra.

His energy-extracting wizardry will be on display April 14 and 15 when the conductor takes the reins of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in performances of Adams’ “Chamber Symphony,” Mozart’s “Oboe Concerto in C Major,” Britten’s “Sinfonietta” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 8 in F Major.”

The concerts will mark the West Coast debut of the 32-year-old Brit, who was recently named music director of the English National Opera.

FineArtsLA spoke with the conductor about the craft of conducting and the weekend’s challenging program. (Continue)

“Music critics are not only a dying breed,” says LA Weekly music critic Alan Rich, “we’re an endangered species.”

Though his role may be moribund, according to Rich the music scene in Los Angeles is vibrant and robust — enough so to keep the 82-year-old and his walking stick of Indiana pine out to concerts as many as five nights per week.

Rich’s resumé is nearly as extensive as Mozart’s Köchel index: He’s been a music scribe for the Newsweek, The New York Times, New York magazine, and a long list of failed publications from the days when you had to turn a vinyl record over to hear the rest of a symphony.

At the LA Weekly, Rich has free rein with his column “A Lot of Night Music” — free rein that’s well deserved at his stage of the game, the stage when he “owns the ballpark.” On March 23 the Los Angeles City Council awarded Rich a citation (”not the parking kind”) for his invaluable contributions to the cultural life of the city. Rich’s latest book is “So I’ve Heard: Notes of a Migratory Music Critic.”

FineArtsLA sat down with Rich and discussed the current state of music and opera in Los Angeles, the waning interest in high culture he’s witnessed over his long career, and the beauty of silence. (Continue)