Night Music

Jeremy Irons and Juliet Stevenson have withdrawn from the Los Angeles Opera presentation of "A Little Night Music" scheduled for July 7 to July 31 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. According to the company, scheduling conflicts prevented the two from reprising the roles they took when this production of Stephen Sondheim's 1973 musical originated at the New York City Opera last summer. Broadway veterans Victor Garber and Judith Ivey will replace them as Fredrik and Desiree, respectively.

MUSIC Local avant-garde rock trio Autolux provides the soundtrack to "Into the Night: Music and Magic," which includes performances from Superhumanoids and KCRW-FM DJ Anthony Valadez. The evening's entertainment features strolling magicians, a screening of the Harry Houdini serial "Master Mystery" (1920) and access to the galleries. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fri. $15. (310) 440-4500. http://www.skirball.org.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is not only a pleasure for adults to experience, but also for kids! ("The Phantom Phenomenon," by Barbara Isenberg, May 31). The fifth grade from St. John of the Cross School in Lemon Grove went to see the play. We loved it so much we want to see it again. Our class got so excited we didn't want to leave the theater. Children can love opera-style music as much as adults! Not only do we love the fascinating Phantom, but we still enjoy music like rap and rock.

It seems like the brainchild of a marketing genius. Take two of Broadway's most celebrated living actresses, bringing with them more than 100 years of combined New York stage experience, and cast them as mother and daughter in a show that mines both their glittering history as musical-theater performers and their indelible association with the composer. It was some casting coup to have Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch step into the Broadway revival of "A Little Night Music," particularly for a production that had been scheduled to close when original leads Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury finished their contracts.

Vermont's Marlboro Music School and Festival sent another batch of alumni to UCLA's Schoenberg Hall on Saturday night, where again they lighted up the room with their energy and controlled abandon. There must be a primal force within the idyllic Marlboro setting -- with its winding country lanes and whimsical "Caution: Musicians at Play" road sign -- that keeps them charged up from summer to early spring.

It seems like the brainchild of a marketing genius. Take two of Broadway's most celebrated living actresses, bringing with them more than 100 years of combined New York stage experience, and cast them as mother and daughter in a show that mines both their glittering history as musical-theater performers and their indelible association with the composer. It was some casting coup to have Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch step into the Broadway revival of "A Little Night Music," particularly for a production that had been scheduled to close when original leads Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury finished their contracts.

A midlife crisis is rather an unsettling thing--but a hilarious one nonetheless when it befalls the reunited ex-lovers at the heart of Interact Theatre Company's spirited revival of "A Little Night Music." Stephen Sondheim's luminous songs and Hugh Wheeler's book are rarely graced with the caliber of talent assembled under John Rubinstein's ambitious staging of this notoriously difficult piece, a musical adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film comedy "Smiles of a Summer Night."

Far from the madding Oscars--well, only a few miles from the Shrine but a universe away from "Shine"--the Leo S. Bing Theater of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art paid an inspiring tribute to musical well-being Monday night. Terry Riley, the legendary keyboard player and composer from Northern California, made a much too rare local appearance, at the Monday Evening Concerts, where he was joined by the remarkable Italian bassist Stefano Scodanibbio.

Peter Maag, the eminent Swiss maestro who recently celebrated his 76th birthday, "is renowned chiefly as a Mozart conductor". Thus speaks the equally eminent "Grove Dictionary". The management of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is trying to underscore the point this week in the vast--probably far too vast--open spaces of the Hollywood Bowl. Twice.

A superstar returned to Hollywood Bowl on Thursday, and attracted a happy audience officially tabulated at 14,741. The huge crowd wasn't drawn by any matinee idol on the podium. The guest-conductor was Peter Maag, an under-rated old pro from Switzerland who had appeared here only once before--two nights earlier. The magnet wasn't any big-name instrumentalist.

Dancers spin across a stage in flowing silk tunics under a bridge evoking Vietnam's imperial city. Quang Le, a popular young Vietnamese singer, serenades the audience with a song about falling in love. Suddenly, there's an explosion and the bridge collapses. A crying baby is heard as the dancers fall to the floor. Quang Le slowly rises, tears streaming down his face as he sings a new song, this one about the loss of innocence. The camera cuts to a montage of teary-eyed Vietnamese in the 3,000-member audience.

Reporting from New York The feel-good musical "Memphis" and the art world drama "Red" were among the biggest Tony Award winners on a night when both Hollywood and London cast long shadows over Broadway's 64th annual spring ritual. "Red," a two-character play starring Alfred Molina as mercurial Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko, won for best new play, one of six statuettes the show claimed at Sunday evening's ceremony. It was produced by London's acclaimed nonprofit Donmar Warehouse before opening this spring on Broadway.

Awards should be aspirational, validating excellence and originality even though each and every one of us knows that commercialism rules the day. But far be it from the ever-insecure Tonys — the geeky glee club representative of the major entertainment awards — to bite the hand that feeds it. For the third year in a row the best musical award went not to the work that deserved it but to the one with the greatest box-office potential on...

The recent parade of Hollywood stars on Broadway has allowed theater critics to indulge in their two favorite pastimes — grousing and fawning. The hypocrisy is perfectly natural: Standards need to be upheld while luminaries are there to be adored. Yet pity the poor conflicted reviewer — committed to "The Theatuh" on the one hand, swept up in the tidal surge of celebrity charisma on the other. I've always maintained that a good actor is a good actor. But famous novices and returning legends need to choose their theatrical ventures wisely.

Charlie Sheen gets to remain a free man for at least another month. A plea bargain under which the actor was expected to be sentenced to 30 days in an Aspen, Colo., jail for assaulting his wife hit a snag Monday, and the court hearing was postponed until July 12. Sheen, 44, the star of the CBS comedy "Two and a Half Men," had been expected to plead guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor assault, and to be sentenced to 30 days in jail. The reported deal would have allowed him to leave jail to coach actors at a local theater during the day, and he could have been freed after 17 days with credit for good behavior, according to legal sources.

Gary Sinise is probably best known for his long-running role as Det. Mac Taylor on CBS' "CSI: NY" and his Oscar-nominated performance as Lt. Dan in "Forrest Gump," but the Valley resident will show his true colors — as in red, white and blue — on Sunday night, co-hosting "The National Memorial Day Concert" on PBS. "It's a magnificent show that they hold right in front of the Capitol building," says Sinise. "I did this for the first time back in 2005. I was in Germany at the time on a USO tour with my band, the Lt. Dan Band (ltdanband.

While in London last week to enjoy some pre-holiday cheer with a few old chums (beach holidays being anathema to a theater critic), I found myself on the typical jet-laggy "If this is Wednesday, it must be Sophocles" itinerary. The high point of my theatergoing was a gloriously intimate production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's "A Little Night Music" at the Menier Chocolate Factory. And the upshot of the trip was a confirmation that the most fertile patches of theatrical ground in England today are the Menier and the Donmar Warehouse, which put on an exquisite production of T.S. Eliot's intractable verse drama "The Family Reunion."

A photographer is trying to figure out how best to shoot David Babani when the 32-year-old British producer of the Broadway revivals of "La Cage Aux Folles" and "A Little Night Music" puckishly offers a suggestion. "Can't you strap me into a harness and suspend me between the two theaters?" he says, sitting in the lobby of the Longacre Theatre — where "La Cage" opened Sunday to strong reviews — directly opposite the Walter Kerr, home of "A Little Night Music." "You could Photoshop it out later.

It looks like an innocent radio sing-a-long. In the new musical "Girlfriend," two adolescents are belting out a pop-rock tune that's on the radio. Flirting like high school seniors headed to the prom, the couple grows more spirited as the music turns louder, ultimately starting to wrestle playfully as they drive along. They harmonize: I didn't know nobody And then I saw you coming my way Don't you need to get in the arms of a good friend? Oh, cuz believe me, I'd sure love to call you my girlfriend.