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Jean Nouvel, Gustavo Dudamel have designs on ‘Marriage of Figaro’

A scene from the 2012 L.A. Phil production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," with a set by Frank Gehry.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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So what will Jean Nouvel do? For the Los Angeles Philharmonic production of “Marriage of Figaro,” the second in Gustavo Dudamel’s cycle of the Mozart operas with librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte, the famed French architect will design installations as a set for the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage, as Frank Gehry did with his wondrous billowing crumpled paper sculptures for “Don Giovanni” a year ago.

What will the Paris-based Tunisian avant-garde clothes designer Azzedine Alaïa come up with for the costumes? What will the L.A. Phil do about where to place the orchestra given that behind the stage didn’t work out so well for “Giovanni”?

And what about Dudamel? He went for a big, boldly Romantic-era sound last year. But last week, when he accompanied concertmaster Martin Chalifour in Mozart’s Third Violin Concert, the orchestra was boisterously aerial, as though Dudamel were now thinking more along the lines of the early music movement practices.

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Finally, what edgy concept will Christopher Alden find for the staging this time after his stately yet emotionally intense “Giovanni”? He certainly has got two emotionally intense veteran singers for the Count and Countess in Dorothea Röschmann and Christopher Maltman, while three emerging ones for the younger characters, with Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Figaro), Malin Christensson (Susanna) and Rachel Frenkel (Cherubino).

We’ll find out Friday and again Sunday, plus May 23 and 25 at Disney Hall.

ALSO:

Gustavo Dudamel wraps up an ambitious year

Review: ‘Don Giovanni’ feels right at home in Disney Hall

Dudamel keeps things light in Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn

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