FROM AROUND THE WORLD: LOS ANGELES.(Review)

CONCERTS AND RECITALS

With "Oscar" opting this year for the much larger Shrine Auditorium, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilions most movie-star-encrusted event this spring was easily Los Angeles Opera's "Placido Domingo and Friends: Welcome Concert and Gala." In an audience dressed to the nines, spotting and naming Hollywood's elite was a game that extended to the stage when the likes of Nicole Kidman, Mira Sorvino, Kathy Bates and Sela Ward started popping up unannounced to introduce the official roster of opera stars. Two nonoperatic special guests also performed: "First Lady of Percussion" Evelyn Glennie, and Mr. "La Vida Loca" himself, Latino superstar Ricky Martin.

Ignoring the proverb about too many cooks, an impressive quartet -- John Williams, Kent Nagano, Valery Gergiev and Esa-Pekka Salonen -- was on hand to conduct the LAO Orchestra. Williams alone might have sufficed, because throughout the evening he consistently exacted the best playing from an apparently under-rehearsed ensemble. Once Williams got the ball rolling with his own "Olympic Fanfare and Theme," podium duties shifted, first to Nagano, LAO's newly appointed principal conductor; then to Gergiev, the maestro slated to lead LAO's new production of Queen of Spades next season; then to Salonen, now in his tenth season at the head of the L.A. Philharmonic; and finally back to Williams for the concluding pops portion of the gala.

As ubiquitous as Rossini's factotum, Domingo made his services available in number after number. He waltzed and sang with Frederica von Stade through Die Lustige Witwe's Act III duet, joined Julia Migenes for a duet from El Gato Montes and danced with Catherine Malfitano during her set of three Kurt Weill songs. Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian (recent Operalia first-prize winner) must have felt somewhat reassured to have Domingo as her partner for "Marietta's Lied"; still, she seemed nervous as she struggled to ...