"Pauline" tells the story behind a key Modernist work. Plus, Matthew López's epic "Inheritance" and edgy "Oklahoma!" in our weekly arts newsletter.
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[Click to view images]Tenor Charles Lane performs in "Pauline: An Opera" at the Schindler House. (Escher GuneWardena) Did we make it to the weekend? Do weekends even exist in our universe of 24-hour doom scrolling? Why does no L.A. museum have a churro cart? These are the existential questions that keep me awake at night. Iâm art and design columnist Carolina A. Miranda with the weekâs essential art news: Opera meets architecture Earlier this year, I reported on [the centenary]( of the Schindler House, the home that Austrian-born architect Rudolph Schindler designed for himself and his wife, Pauline Gibling Schindler, along with another couple, Clyde and Marian Chace. This icon of Modern architecture is notable for many reasons: its fluid, indoor-outdoor plan; the fostering of communal living; and the innovative ways it rethought aspects of residential design â close to a decade before Le Corbusier had completed his influential Villa Savoye in France. But in reporting the story, I was really struck by how Schindler had designed the home as an informal cultural stage â and the ways in which Pauline, a writer and composer who was known for her ebullient salons, employed it. There were lectures, poetry recitals and dances (some nude!). [A woman in a loose brown dress performs before an audience seated and standing in a garden.]
Argenta Walther performs the role of Pauline Schindler in an opera inspired by the story of the Schindler House. (Escher GuneWardena) Over the course of my assignment, I went down a rabbit hole on [the work of poet and critic]( Sadakichi Hartmann, one of the regulars at these events. The son of a Japanese mother and German father, who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th century, Hartmann was friendly with Walt Whitman, knew writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Gertrude Stein, and helped introduce Japanese poetic forms to the English language. He also made an appearance in the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks picture, âThe Thief of Baghdad.â (Scholar Floyd Cheung published [a good collection]( of Hartmannâs work in 2017, âSadakichi Hartmann: Collected Poems, 1886-1944.â) I was therefore excited to catch the Schindler House in action during a performance of âPauline: An Operaâ earlier this month, a four-act opera conceived and written by architects Frank Escher and Ravi Gunewardena (who together run a namesake Los Angeles studio, [Escher GuneWardena Architecture](. In the principal roles were mezzo soprano Argenta Walther and tenor Charles Lane; a trio of piano, cello and flute contributed compositions by John Cage (who once lived in the house and had an affair with Pauline), as well as Mary Ellen Childs, Henry Cowell, Sergei Prokofiev and Edgard Varèse. This roving performance began in the garden that bordered the studio once occupied by the Chaces, before moving through the house to the rear patio. There, the doors to the home were swung open, turning the space that had once served as Paulineâs studio into an improvised proscenium. The audience sat in the garden to take in the show. The performance was several layers of meta: an opera about the architecture of the Schindler House and the lives it sheltered within, presented in the Schindler House â which was designed for performance. As many stories do, the operaâs narrative is one that begins with notes of optimism â the construction of the house itself â before slipping into tempestuousness: Paulineâs mental health crises, her affair with Cage, the dissolution of her marriage to Schindler, but also the intellectual reconciliation they came to in the end. A particularly wrenching moment in the fourth act is drawn from letters sent by Rudolphâs mother to her son in Los Angeles about the persecution they suffer in Nazi-occupied Austria. [Musicians inside a house play for an audience assembled beyond a set of sliding doors.]
Todd Moellenberg (piano), April Dawn Guthrie (cello) and Christine Tavolacci (flute) perform in âPauline: An Opera.â (Escher GuneWardena) â[Pauline: An Opera]( was first presented at the house in 2013, commissioned by former MAK Center Director Kimberli Meyer. Current director Jia Yi Gu helped bring it back for the anniversary. If it emerges again, mark your calendar. I canât think of a better way to see the house â the way that Schindler intended. ADVERTISEMENT BY The Folio Society
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Bradley James Tejeda plays the roles of both Adam and Leo in Matthew Lópezâs generational drama âThe Inheritance.â (Jeff Lorch) âOklahoma!â may be a cornerstone of musical theater, but the revival that has been touring the country for the past year is a decidedly different beast from the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical most are familiar with. [In his review]( of the show last month, McNulty described a work that doesnât shy from showing the âsordid undersideâ of American life. Others have labeled it âedgy,â âdarkâ and âterrifying.â Now The Timesâ Ashley Lee looks at how audiences have reacted to the reinvented version: âadoration, awe, anger or confusion,â she reports, and maybe some [audible vomiting](. Classical notes Omar ibn Said, a Muslim scholar from Senegal who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Carolinas in the 19th century, wrote a memoir in Arabic that is a critical (if coded) first-person account of the slave labor experience. Musician Rhiannon Giddens, in collaboration with film composer Michael Abels, used that work as the foundation of âOmar,â landing at Los Angeles Opera this weekend. Contributor Tim Greiving has a look at [how the opera came together](. âThis is a story that is very, very important and not known, and you wouldnât think operatic,â says Giddens, âeven though it is, in scope, absolutely operatic.â [A woman, with her hair pulled back, sits in a white chair and leans her chin in her hand and gently smiles.]
Rhiannon Giddens, singer, composer and banjo player, now adds opera to her docket. (Rick Loomis / For The Times)
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Design time Over the summer, Kylie Jenner sparked public outrage for the ways in which the 1% are incinerating the environment after she posted a photo flaunting her private jet on Instagram. Naturally, it raises the specter of climate change, a problem so vast as to seem almost abstract. Except it isnât abstract for the communities that live around the Van Nuys Airport, one of the busiest hubs of private jet operations in the country. As private jet use has spiked, the airportâs urban design hasnât kept up. I have a look at what that means for some of the denser urban neighborhoods in L.A.: [coffee with a side of ultrafine particles](. Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. [Become a subscriber](. Plus, another shout-out to Schindler: In the middle of a housing crunch, my colleague Lisa Boone has a look at how a photographer and an interior designer are experimenting with communal living â [and digging it](. Just dance Artist Cassils is known for their demanding performance art pieces. Last week, they staged their first work of dance at REDCAT, in collaboration with L.A. choreographer Jasmine Albuquerque. A week out, I still find myself ruminating on some of [the poignant gestures]( in this piece, in which six trans and nonbinary performers embodied joy, pain and the comforts of chosen family â and in the process created a remarkable cyanotype print with technical assistance from Bonny Taylor. [Six figures are seen in silhouette against a blue scrim marked by the light outlines of bodies.]
Cassilsâ âHuman Measureâ dealt with questions of gender and the body as it riffed on Western art history. (Manuel Vason)
Essential happenings Matt Cooper has the latest L.A. happenings, including performances by the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Broad Stage, the dance troupe Bodytraffic at the Wallis in Beverly Hills and the opening of the Picasso Ingres show at the Norton Simon in Pasadena. [Find all the deets here](. And because itâs spooky season: Cooper also has [all the Halloween happenings]( including American Contemporary Balletâs âInferno & Burlesqueâ and a performance of âThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligariâ at Disney Hall â for which âHurricane Mama,â the hallâs massive pipe organ, will be put to good use! I saw a slew of interesting gallery shows this week, some of which are in their final days. In Chinatown, the most recent show of Patrick Martinezâs architectonic paintings [caught my eye]( as well as a group show he organized in the galleryâs basement, which features work by artists exploring connections with Los Angeles. At Deitch, curator Kathy Huang has put together [an absorbing show]( of painting by Asian American and diasporic women titled âWonder Womenâ that brings a fresh gaze to femme and female bodies. I was especially intrigued by the slightly surreal, slightly ominous dreamscape presented by L.A. artist Tidawhitney Lek. Hyperallergicâs Jasmine Liu wrote about [the New York version of this show]( when it appeared at Deitchâs gallery there. A good backgrounder. [A painting shows a woman napping as a hand reaches around the couch she is sleeping on and another grasps a doorknob.]
âNapping,â 2022, by Los Angeles artist Tidawhitney Lek, appears in a groundbreaking group show at Deitch in Hollywood. (Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times) I was also intrigued by âStorm Before the Calm,â [a group show]( at Praz-Delavallade curated by Michael Slenske that explores the idea of the âtoxic sublimeâ and questions of climate change. (Expect works depicting nature that appears to be in revolt.) In the same complex, a small show of works by James Bartolacci at Anat Egbi evoked the ecstatic communion and ecstatic color palettes of [club life](. Moves Roberts Projects gallery is leaving Culver City for [a much larger location on South La Brea]( that is being revamped by Johnston Marklee, reports The Timesâ Deborah Vankin. âThe energy in Culver City has changed,â said gallery co-founder Julie Roberts, âand we wanted to be closer to where the art world was moving toward â which feels like Mid-City.â Elizabeth Cline, who served as executive director of Yuval Sharonâs groundbreaking avant-garde opera company, the Industry, is stepping down from that role after eight years, and [moving on to become executive director]( of Christopher Rountreeâs contemporary music collective, Wild Up. Los Angeles playwrights Amanda L. Andrei, Xavier Clark, Peter Pasco, Jasmine Sharma, Mak Shealy and Thomas DanÃel Valls have been named [the 2022-23 class]( of the IAMA Emerging Playwrights Lab. New Yorkâs Museum of Modern Art is planning a major Ed Ruscha retrospective [for 2023](. The show will arrive at LACMA the following year. [A man is seen in a close-up that reveals his blue eyes; he wears a dark jacket, white shirt and bolo tie.]
Artist Ed Ruscha at the 2013 Whitney Gala & Studio Party. (Evan Agostini / Invision)
Passages Peter Schjeldahl, an art critic with a fondness for poetry and fireworks, whose venerable dispatches appeared in the Village Voice, followed by the New Yorker, has died at 80. âA poet by vocation in his earlier years,â writes the New York Timesâ William Grimes in [an obituary]( âhe brought an exquisite word sense to his polished essays, which managed to translate visual subtleties into lapidary prose.â Back in 2019, Schjeldahl produced [a staggering essay]( about his terminal cancer â its sentences taut and telegraphic â for the New Yorker. âDeath is like painting rather than like sculpture, because itâs seen from only one side,â he wrote. âMonochrome â like the mausoleum-gray former Berlin Wall, which kids in West Berlin glamorized with graffiti. What Iâm trying to do here.â Jeff Weiss, a New York-based playwright and stage actor, known for appearing in offbeat shows, has [died at 82](. Toshi Ichiyanagi, an experimental composer whose avant-garde works allowed musicians to pick the notes and the pace, is [dead at 89](. John Cage was a mentor and Yoko Ono, his ex-wife. Together, he and Ono collaborated on an early 1960s piece that involved using microphones to amplify the performersâ breathing. In other news â Catherine Wagley has [an absolutely epic report]( in ARTnews on how Ace Galleryâs Doug Chrismas went from the art world A-list to being charged with money laundering and embezzlement.
â âPerilous to navigate, marked by tawdry vandalism and utterly inadequate to both their historical gravity and to the functional demands of the city.â Mark Lamster of the Dallas Morning News [leads a charge]( to redesign one of Dallasâ most important historical sites: Dealey Plaza, the site where John F. Kennedy was killed.
â Artist and architect Amanda Williams was recently bestowed with a MacArthur âgeniusâ grant. The Chicago Tribune looks at one of her ongoing projects, which [visualizes redlining](.
â My colleagues in the Metro section have [an incredible investigative report]( on how L.A. came to be so overcrowded. Must-read.
â A British advisory board, which includes a former culture minister, [is examining]( the question of returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece.
â Artist EJ Hill is building a roller coaster [inside a museum](.
â Russiaâs GES-2 House of Culture marked a moment of cultureâs promise when it opened in 2021. In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, it is [anything but](.
â [The design]( of cannabis dispensaries.
â Fast fashion company Shein has launched a Frida Kahlo collection. Some of Kahloâs descendants, who have been struggling to regain the rights to Kahloâs name, are [not pleased](. And last but not least ... John Oliver on [looting](. ADVERTISEMENT
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