Kristin Chenoweth, Uzo Aduba, and More Announced for Placido Domingo 50th Anniversary Concert
By: Julie Musbach Oct. 11, 2017
Uzo Aduba, Garth Brooks and Kristin Chenoweth will join a host of opera stars featured at the Plácido Domingo 50th Anniversary Concert. LA Opera's gala event will take place on November 17, 2017, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion-50 years to the day since Mr. Domingo made his Los Angeles debut on the very same stage.
Guest artists also include opera stars Janai Brugger, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Mario Chang, Michael Fabiano, Ermonela Jaho, Ana María Martínez and Liudmyla Monastyrska. All will perform with the LA Opera Orchestra, conducted by James Conlon, the company's Richard Seaver Music Director.
The concert will take place at 7:30pm on Friday, November 17, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90012).
Plácido Domingo's 50 Years in Los Angeles
On November 17, 1967, a young Spanish tenor on tour with New York City Opera took to the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the title role of Ginastera's Don Rodrigo. Few people in the audience would have recognized the name of Plácido Domingo then, but in the five decades since that remarkable debut, he not only became one of the greatest opera stars of all time, he also made a profound impact on the cultural life of Los Angeles-as a singer, conductor and champion of the arts. A vital presence at LA Opera since the company's birth, when he starred in the inaugural 1986 production of Otello, he held the positions of Artistic Consultant (since 1984) and Artistic Director (2001-2003) before he was named Eli and Edythe Broad General Director in 2003. To date, Los Angeles audiences have seen him perform 32 different roles (28 of those with LA Opera). He has conducted 101 performances of 18 different operas (in addition to numerous concerts) at LA Opera, where he also created the prestigious Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program.
Advance Tickets
Tickets are on sale now. Tickets range from $69 to $409 and can be purchased in person at the LA Opera Box Office at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, by phone at 213.972.8001 or online at LAOpera.org. For disability access, call 213.972.0777 or email LAOpera@LAOpera.org.
For additional information, visit LAOpera.org/Domingo50.
Meet the Guest Performers
Uzo Aduba won two SAG Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy, an Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Drama and an Emmy for Guest Actress in a Comedy for her portrayal of Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren in Orange is the New Black. She was additionally honored with three SAG Awards for Best Ensemble in a Comedy. She appeared in NBC's The Wiz Live! as Glinda the Good Witch. A classical music major at the Boston University School of Fine Arts, she appeared on Broadway in Coram Boy and Godspell and on the West End in The Maids.
Garth Brooks recently won Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards for a fifth time, a first for any artist. He is the first artist ever to receive seven Diamond awards, for albums certified by the RIAA at over 10 million sales each, and he is the #1-selling solo artist in U.S. history, with over 148 million album sales. He has been inducted into the International Songwriters Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame and Musicians Hall of Fame. He is on a three-year world tour with Trisha Yearwood, which has sold over six million tickets, making it the biggest North American tour in history and the biggest American tour in the world.
An alumna of LA Opera's Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, soprano Janai Brugger was hailed by Opera News as one of the year's top 25 "brilliant young artists" (October 2015). Her Metropolitan Opera roles include Pamina in The Magic Flute, Liu in Turandot and Micaëla in Carmen, and she recently made her debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Pamina. This season, she performs with Lyric Opera of Chicago and the LA Philharmonic, among others.
Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz has appeared with LA Opera as a soloist in the Verdi Requiem (2007) and in the leading tenor roles in La Bohème (2007), La Traviata (2014), Florencia en el Amazonas (2014), Gianni Schicchi (2015) and Macbeth (2016). He will return in April as the Duke in Rigoletto. A 2005 Operalia winner, he also appears this season in La Traviata in Rome, La Bohème in Hamburg, The Elixir of Love in Palermo and Rigoletto in Naples.
Guatemalan tenor Mario Chang was the winner of three awards-first prize, zarzuela prize and audience prize-at Operalia in 2014. He recently returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Nemorino in The Elixir of Love and the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier. This season, he returns to the Frankfurt Opera in Wertherand Roberto Devereux and to LA Opera as Ismaele in Nabucco. He made his LA Opera debut in 2016 as Rodolfo in La Bohème.
Kristin Chenoweth's career spans film, television and stage. She won an Emmy for Pushing Daisies (2009) and a Tony for You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999). In 2004 she earned a Tony nomination for Wicked. In 2015, she won a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for On the Twentieth Century. She can be seen in Starz' American Gods and will guest star on TV Land's Younger.
Conductor James Conlon has been the Richard Seaver Music Director of LA Opera since 2006. To date, he has conducted 53 different operas and over 341 performances with the company. He has led virtually every major North American and European orchestra and over 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Last season, he became principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the RAI in Torino.
The recipient of the 2014 Richard Tucker Award, tenor Michael Fabiano began the current season at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Rodolfo in La Bohème and will return there as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, a role he will reprise for his LA Opera debut. He also performs Des Grieux in Manon at the San Francisco Opera and returns to the Met for Rodolfo in La Bohème and Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, a role he will reprise for Opera Australia.
In demand across the world, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho is particularly recognized for her portrayals of Violetta in La Traviata and the title role in Madama Butterfly. She has portrayed Violetta in more than 15 opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden as well as in Vienna, Munich, Verona, Madrid, Stuttgart, Marseilles, Berlin, Stockholm, Hamburg, Lyon and on tour in Japan with the Royal Opera.
Soprano Ana María Martínez has performed six leading roles LA Opera, including the title role of Carmen earlier this season. She recently performed Carmen in Houston and Santa Fe, Marguerite in Faust in Houston, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin in Chicago, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly at Covent Garden and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni in San Francisco, and she also performed in a multi-city tour with tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska will make her LA Opera debut as Abigaille in Nabucco, a role she has performed with La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She has performed Aïda in Paris and Vienna; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Covent Garden; Tosca and Aïda in Houston; and Aïda and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at La Scala.
The Plácido Domingo 50th Anniversary Celebration
is made possible by generous gifts from
Ann Ziff
Marc and Eva Stern Foundation
With support from
Rolex
LA Opera is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving the greater Los Angeles community.
Yamaha is the Official Piano of LA Opera.
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