Opera

There are two schools of thought (or laughter) when it comes to the Marx Brothers. Marx Brothers purists prefer to see the comedy team in the low-budget, wild-and-crazy comedies they made at Paramount such as the seminal 1933 political satire "Duck Soup. " Other fans who were raised on their bigger-budget MGM vehicles such as 1935's "A Night at the Opera" believe the siblings were never funnier than when they were at the studio. The American Cinematheque retrospective, "A Night at the Opera: The Marx Brothers on the Big Screen," which opens Thursday at the Egyptian and runs through Sunday, should appeal to both camps.

In a match made in what's surely somebody's idea of musical heaven, the Long Beach Opera will take a sidelong look toward the Grateful Dead with a Sunday screening of Jim Kohlberg's "The Music Never Stopped." The film, which was an entry in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, acts as a sort of stage-setter for the company's production of Michael Nyman's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," an opera based on the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks by the same name.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Renowned baritone championed German lieder Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 86, a renowned baritone who led a worldwide revival in popularity for German lieder, died in his sleep Friday at his home in the southern German city of Starnberg, his family said. The respected interpreter of classical art songs and opera performed for more than five decades primarily on European stages while also touring worldwide and recording extensively. He became best known for his renditions of songs by Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler.

Long Beach Opera's new production of Osvaldo Golijov's "Ainadamar" comes at an important time. The opera is a meditation on the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's murder by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, which is ever relevant, especially in the way the work echoes the current situation in the Middle East. But there is another reason why this opera matters right now, despite LBO's somewhat slapdash production at Terrace Theater Sunday night. Golijov has been going through a bad patch, and we need to be reminded why the music world would be unwise to lose faith in him. He has missed deadlines, including for a violin concerto that was to have been premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic a year ago. He has also come under attack for plagiarism by "gotcha" critics who miss the larger context of his work and what makes it so culturally rich and pertinent.

Where: Bing Theatre, USC When: 8 p.m. Wednesday and Friday; 2 p.m. Sunday Prices: $12 to $18 Information: (213) 740-2167 or http://www.usc.edu/tickets

"I'd like to take a little bit of responsibility for this nightmare." The source of that generous offer is far from evil. If anything, Nathan Gunn is the dimpled picture of Midwestern nice guy-ness -- think a younger, darker Russell Crowe without the edge. That's why he's volunteering to take the fall for men like himself -- opera's tantalizing new breed of baritone known as "barihunks." They're known for their great bods and for breathless blogs written by devoted admirers.

Classical music is often maligned for its apparent insistence that aspiring acolytes display proper credentials before becoming a true follower. Once admitted to the fold, you must bow to the altar of knowledge and denounce uncomplicated pleasure as the ultimate blasphemy. No matter what denomination you choose (chamber music, new music, opera, orchestra), you can be sure the repertoire is studded with landmines, the detonation of which will instantly out you as a Philistine or worse: not serious.

The surviving prologue of an unfinished, long-lost opera by Dmitri Shostakovich will have its world premiere in December 2011 in a semi-staged production at Walt Disney Concert Hall, capping a multi-year process of musical sleuthing and improbable discoveries that's nearly as eye-opening as the work's bizarre subject matter. Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in three performances of the reconstructed prologue to the opera, "Orango," a blisteringly satirical 1932 work about the wayward doings of a grotesque half-man, half-ape creature that the Russian composer wrote in collaboration with librettists Alexei Tolstoy and Alexander Starchakov.

Daniel Catán, an opera composer and librettist whose works including "Il Postino" and "Florencia en el Amazonas" have been praised for their lyrical romanticism and humane generosity of spirit, died suddenly Saturday in Austin, Texas. He was 62. Catán's death was announced by the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas, where he was a visiting artist. The cause has not been determined. A South Pasadena resident, Catán had been commissioned by the Butler School to adapt Frank Capra's 1941 classic film "Meet John Doe" for the operatic stage.

Opera Pacific's performance of "The Flying Dutchman" may have been as good as Mark Swed's review indicated ("Wagner Brought to Life," Jan. 21). However, since I was forced to close my eyes and keep my head down for major portions of the second and third acts, I could not say. I'm sure the lighting effects were very impressive viewed from the orchestra section. I would recommend any director contemplating such displays in the future view them from all seats in the house. Having high-wattage stage lights aimed in one's face is more conducive to a nagging headache than a pleasant opera experience.

  Los Angeles Opera can stop worrying right now. The Los Angeles Philharmonic's new production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," which had its first of four performances Friday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, is certainly getting all the attention at the moment and for all the obvious and all the right reasons. The hall's architect, Frank Gehry, has designed stunning sets. The fashion world, long enamored of Disney, is involved, with powerfully theatrical costumes from Rodarte and hairstyles by Odile Gilbert.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Renowned baritone championed German lieder Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 86, a renowned baritone who led a worldwide revival in popularity for German lieder, died in his sleep Friday at his home in the southern German city of Starnberg, his family said. The respected interpreter of classical art songs and opera performed for more than five decades primarily on European stages while also touring worldwide and recording extensively. He became best known for his renditions of songs by Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler.

“The View” 10 a.m. Thursday, ABC: performance from “Once.” “Dudu Fisher: In Concert From Israel” Noon Thursday, KCET: Singer Dudu Fisher performs Broadway tunes and Israeli songs. “Open Call” 9 p.m. Thursday, KCET: "Kenny Burrell: Master and Mentor": Hosted by mezzo-soprano opera singer Suzanna Guzman, Open Call features a wide variety of productions from profiles of artists. “Soulful Symphony With Darin Atwater: Song in a Strange Land” Noon Saturday, KCET: Artistic director Atwater conducts an 85-member orchestra in compositions exhibiting styles ranging through gospel, jazz and symphonic music.

There've been commedia dell'arte versions of "Don Giovanni" and a 3-D version of "Don Giovanni. " Mozart's terminally debauched antihero has been reimagined as a kind of peruked Hugh Hefner and as a junkie with a hypodermic needle stuck in his arm and aMcDonald's hamburger on his breath. But when conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic present a new, semi-staged production of "Don Giovanni" at Walt Disney Concert Hall for four sold-out performances starting Friday, the emphasis won't be on some radically high-concept re-invention of Mozart's 1787 masterpiece.

At the world premiere Thursday night of Anne LeBaron's darkly mysterious, troubling yet weirdly exuberant and wonderfully performed new opera "Crescent City," a young Reveler in the production frolicked a few feet from where I was sitting on a folding chair along the perimeter of the experimental art space, Atwater Crossing. She wore a skirt fashioned out of the Arts & Books section of this newspaper, and she was close enough that I could read a few crumpled lines. But she was hardly there to make me or any other Angeleno feel remotely at home.

With the sound of brass instruments coming from above, scenes of wreckage on the floor and an array of abstract sculpture in between, this warehouse space captures music, art and chaos all on a collision course. That's a fitting combination for a performance piece about post-Katrina New Orleans, but director Yuval Sharon wants to be clear: "Crescent City," the ambitious and unconventional "hyperopera" that opens this week at Atwater Crossing, both is and isn't about the hurricane-ravaged city.

Bravo to David Byrne on his discovery of opera ("Pop Making Sense -- of Opera," by Scott Timberg, April 25)! I look forward to hearing his covers of the Bizet and Verdi numbers on his new album. However, I'll bet every opera fan reading the article laughed aloud at Byrne's musing that "a lot of the opera is almost purely heart -- it's either tragic or purely heartfelt passion. And not so much lust...." He should give a good listen to, for example, "Salome" or the final numbers in the respective first acts of "Tosca," Verdi's "Otello" or "Madama Butterfly."

I would like the public to know of the outstanding service the L.A. Opera is providing secondary students in the L.A. area. Two morning performances of "Madama Butterfly" were recently given to packed houses of enthusiastic students at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Teachers were given in-service training and excellent materials so we could prepare our students with plot discussions and musical themes. Gentle, but precise, instructions outlined proper opera demeanor as well. The hundreds of teens in attendance behaved extremely well, even holding their much-rehearsed "bravos!"

He had already been proclaimed "the Picasso of children's books" by Time magazine when Maurice Sendak, then in his 30s, wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are," a dark fantasy that became one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time. Published in 1963, the book was a startling departure from the sweetness and innocence that then ruled children's literature. "Wild Things" tapped into the fears of childhood and sent its main character — an unruly boy in a wolf costume — into a menacing forest to tame the wild beasts of his imagination.

The merits of working with one's spouse can be debated endlessly, but few couples face the pressures of opera singers who share a life and sometimes a stage. In 2004, local music lovers were transfixed when two of opera's biggest stars, tenor Roberto Alagna and soprano Angela Gheorghiu, appeared in Herbert Ross' production of Puccini's "La Bohème" at Los Angeles Opera. That the singers were married to each other in real life made the experience, already rife with romantic pathos, that much more intense.