Walt Disney Concert Hall – August 16, 2025
I had an offer $33 tickets for this semi-staged performance of Turandot at Walt Disney Concert Hall and since we enjoyed Das Rheingold so much and also since it was not an LA Opera production, we grabbed them. Julie told me she was going to get there an hour early since we have had such parking issues around the Music Center lately. I told her I thought it would be okay since it’s WDCH and not the Dorothy Chandler and they have their own parking lot, but she’s had issues there too. The trick is to go in on Lower Grand. If you get off the 110N at 4th, it’s an easy left on a one way street with a designated turn lane to get onto Lower Grand and then you just drive to the end and turn left into the parking lot. When I got there, I was the ONLY person pulling into the parking lot. Easy Peasy. I did make the mistake of going up to look for parking and there was none. I should have just turned to a lower level to begin with. Lesson learned.
We had what we call “weird side seats” on the West Terrace. We actually really like those seats. We were in row A so there was no one in front of us. If you go for the weird side seats, you’ll want to get the seats a little farther from the orchestra if possible so you can see performer’s faces rather than their profiles or backs. I had read the Wikipedia about Turandot while waiting for Julie to arrive at the Bowl for Tchaikovsky’s Fourth so I gave her a quick rundown. It ended with “and they lived happily ever after” which made no sense. It’s an OPERA for goodness sake! The basic gist is Turandot is a princess who does not want to wed so her suitors must answer 3 riddles. If they cannot answer correctly, they are executed. Prince Calaf falls in love with Turandot and despite everyone telling him not to, rings the gong 3 times to signal he will answer the riddles. Prior to seeing Turandot, he encountered his blind exiled father and his slave Liu, who is secretly in love with Calaf. Calaf answers the riddles correctly and Turandot begs her father to let her off the hook. Calaf offers her an out – if she can figure out his name before dawn breaks, she can execute him but if she can’t she will wed him. They bring the father and Liu before Turandot to try to get them to give his name but Liu says only she knows the name in order to spare the father and then runs into the guard’s knife to kill herself rather than tell the name. Through the course of the night Turandot falls in love with Calaf, so by the time he tells her his name, she no longer wants to kill him…and they live happily ever after. When it was over, Julie turned to me and said, “What happened?” Puccini died while this one was being written so it was finished for him. We agreed that what should have happened was that after Turandot fell in love with Calaf, he should have spurned her, having realized the purity of Liu’s heart. And then clearly one of the two of them has to die. It’s an OPERA! There is one song in this opera you probably know: Nessun Dorma.
Although this was billed as semi-staged, it was far less staged than Das Rheingold, and there were no costumes. They managed to tell the story though. It’s a very choir heavy show and supporting the Los Angeles Dream Orchestra (whom I had honestly never heard of), was the Opera Chorus of Los Angeles and an ensemble from OCSA. That seemed a little odd to me since LACHSA is so nearby, but maybe they couldn’t get them this close to the beginning of classes. The Dream Orchestra does an annual concert at the cathedral, so I might check that out.
The singers were wonderful. It was a little weird that Calaf’s father looked younger than him, but it was easy enough to overlook that and the show otherwise played well, with the exception of a few weird breaks when the choir relocated to the orchestra view seats reserved for them and an awkward 5 minute break on stage where we watched the conductor wipe his brow and stand around for a bit. He finally walked off stage and walked back on to signify Act 2 was beginning. It would have been better if he had just walked off stage for 5 minutes and left the orchestra and choir on stage because it doesn’t look so awkward for the orchestra to sit in their seats and take a drink of water.
All in all, it was definitely worth the $33 I paid for my ticket. I’ll be on the lookout for other Los Angeles Dream Orchestra concerts.