Philip Glass canceled a Kennedy Center show, but this conductor brings his work center stage at L.A. Opera
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When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation.She was 13, growing up in the factory town of Tampere in the south of Finland, and her school librarian gave her a CD of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” along with a translation of its Italian libretto.“As a teenage girl, this dramatic story touched my soul,” Stasevska says, adding that she still remembers the experience and thinking, “ ‘This music understands me, this is exactly how I feel.’ And that was…when I knew that I wanted to become a musician.”Stasevska is now chief conductor of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra and a prodigious conductor of orchestral music in all forms.
A busy guest baton with companies around the globe, she will make her L.A.Opera debut this Saturday with a production of “Akhnaten” by Philip Glass, running through late March.The seminal work by Glass lands at L.A.
Opera just a month after the world-famous composer abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No.15 “Lincoln” at the John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.“While Philip Glass has pulled out of Kennedy Center, his music will be front and center at our production,” a rep for L.A.
Opera wrote in an email.Stasevska, with her razor-sharp appreciation of the power of Glass’ work, is the ideal conductor to bring it there.Entertainment & Arts World-renowned composer Philip Glass abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No.
15 ‘Lincoln’ at the Kennedy Center, saying its message is in direct conflict with the values of the venue under the Trump administration.Stasevska, 41, walks from the ornate foyer of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its emerald green carpets and gleaming chandeliers, to the more ordinary hallways and cubicles of L.A.Opera’s offices.
She’s been in town rehearsing for a few weeks and jokes with s...