United States Mozart: LA Opera Principal Winds – Leslie Reed, Jennifer Cullinan (oboe, English horn), Heather Clark, Sarah Weisz (flute), Donald Foster, Laura Stoutenborough (clarinet), William May, William Wood (bassoon), Steven Becknell, Allen Fogle (French horn). Presented by Melodia Mariposa, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, 29.3.2025. (LV)
Mozart – Arrangements for winds: Le nozze di Figaro (Overture, Introduction, ‘Se a casa Madama’, ‘Se vuol ballare’, ‘Non più andrai’); Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Overture, ‘Hier soll ich dich denn sehen’, ‘Ich gehe doch rate ich dir’, ‘Durch Zärtlichkeit und Schmeicheln’, ‘Ha, wie will ich triumphieren’); Cosí fan tutte (Overture)
When Covid-19 struck in 2020, violinist Irina Voloshina founded the Melodia Mariposa music series which performed on the driveway of her Altadena home, presenting over 65 free public concerts so that people could continue to hear live classical music. These concerts developed into an organization called Mariposa Concerts which played free live concerts in four venues in and around Altadena.
When the fires erupted in California in January, Irina was in Europe. Her house burned down, and she lost her music, books, family photographs, computer – everything except her violin which a neighbor rescued before she had to evacuate. Three of the four venues also burned down, and the concert on the afternoon of 29 March took place at the remaining one, Westminster Presbyterian Church, an imposing French Gothic design built in 1925. The concert featured ten players from the LA Opera Orchestra playing an hour’s worth of delicious contemporary arrangements from three Mozart operas: The Marriage of Figaro, The Abduction from the Seraglio and Così fan tutte.
Both the music and the playing were sublime. I had heard the opening performance of the LA Opera’s Così earlier in the month, and the winds were a highlight of Mozart’s score and of the light-hearted performance set in a Jay Gatsby Roaring Twenties setting. To hear them alone having unfettered fun, including delightful little additions now and then, was a Mozartian’s dream. The quality of the playing was even more amazing considering that principal horn Steven Becknell was recovering from a broken tooth.
‘It’s amazing’, James Conlon, the LA Opera’s outgoing music director, told me during an interview. ‘He is one of the great players, and I am so happy he is back. I talked to him right after the accident, and he said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen because my jaw is all wired up”. But he has come back, and he’s there. It’s great. It is a commitment to community’.
Conlon admitted that the music of Così ‘is more sublime than the plot, without question. The fact that we even know it and do it is because of Mozart’s profundity. It was impossible for him not to be profound, and that was Beethoven’s quibble with him. Why would such a genius waste his time on such a trivial plot?’
I suggested that Beethoven’s instinct was to push the form, whereas Mozart’s instinct was to say, ‘Okay, I got this form. I’m going to make it the best I can’. Conlon replied, ‘Also, Beethoven was a little puritanical and Mozart was not. I think that also has something to do with it’.
Two days earlier, Voloshina’s Melodia Mariposa had taken part in an Altadena fire relief benefit concert at the Alex Theatre in Glendale that featured Caribbean Steel pan rhythms, hip-hop dance and classical. It was just another SoCal evening where art gives back, and the community comes first.
Laurence Vittes