Getty Villa sets reopening date after fire: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
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The Getty Villa Museum will reopen to the public on a limited basis beginning June 27 after a nearly six-month closure forced by the devastating Palisades fire.
On the night of Jan. 7, reports swirled that the wind-driven conflagration had reached the outskirts of the Villa. A Getty team stayed through the night, putting out spot fires with fire extinguishers and ensuring that the galleries were safely sealed off, while updating a command team at Getty Center that included Getty President and Chief Executive Katherine Fleming.
A few days later, Fleming told The Times that the teams were confident that their thorough preparation — including extensive brush clearing — would keep the museum from burning. The galleries and other buildings did remain safe, but the glittering fountain pools went dark with ash. Extensive work on the property, including intensive cleaning and testing of indoor and outdoor spaces for toxic residue, is nearing completion. The water system has been flushed, and air and water filters have been replaced. More than 1,300 fire-damaged trees were removed.
“The site may look different to visitors,” the museum warned in an announcement this week, “with less vegetation and some burn damage to the outer grounds.”
The limited visitor hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Monday. The goal will be to help limit traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, which is the only way to reach the campus. (The Villa is not yet accessible via Sunset Boulevard.) Reservations are limited to 500 visitors daily, and free, timed-entry reservations can be booked online. Parking is $25.
Unfortunately, the exhibition on view when the fire erupted, “Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures From Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece,” had to close, but the Getty created a virtual tour. Times art critic Christopher Knight had great things to say about it when he viewed the exhibition in person just before the fire.
The exhibition for the reopening is “The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,” which will be on view from June 27 through Jan. 12. It will feature more than 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, a region in Greece where the Mycenaean civilization flourished during the Late Bronze Age.
Theater fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The outdoor classical theater will return in the fall with “Oedipus the King, Mama!” co-produced by Troubadour Theater Company.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking forward to reading a book in the shade by a Villa fountain. Here’s your weekend arts roundup.
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The SoCal scene
Does Los Angeles have its own musical style? Times classical music critic Mark Swed answers the question after attending the Hear Now Music Festival and Tod Machover’s opera “Schoenberg in Hollywood.” “Los Angeles is the home of film music. The two most influential classical composers of the first half of the 20th century, Stravinsky and Schoenberg, lived here. ... The composer with the most radical influence on the second half of the 20th century, John Cage, was born and grew up here. Ferreting out L.A.’s bearing on jazz and the many, many aspects of popular music, as well as world music, is a lifetime’s effort,” Swed writes.
“A Doll’s House, Part 2” at Pasadena Playhouse gets a mixed review from Times theater critic Charles McNulty, who praises Jason Butler Harner’s performance as Torvald, while noting that costumes and set design did not entirely come together. Lucas Hnath’s play picks up 15 years after the conclusion of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 classic, when Nora famously walks out on her husband and children. Nora’s life is complicated. And so is McNulty’s reaction to the show.
Last week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art laid off 15 full-time employees, accounting for 14% of its staff. Most were from the organization’s education and public programming team. Seven part-time, on-call employees were also let go, according to the museum. Sources described the morning of the layoffs as chaotic and shocking, with staff being summoned by human resources and being told they needed to be out of the building by 2 p.m. The museum said in a statement, “Education remains a central pillar of the Lucas Museum.”
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The Hammer Museum raised $2.4 million during its 20th annual Gala in the Garden last Saturday. The fete honored Jane Fonda and artist Lauren Halsey, and it featured a performance by the singer Griff. This marked the first gala for the museum’s new director, Zoë Ryan, who took over in January. Last year’s party marked a heartfelt send-off for longtime director Ann Philbin, who retired after 25 years at the helm of the institution. This year, per usual, plenty of celebrities were in attendance, including LeBron and Savannah James, Usher, Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and Molly Shannon, as well as plenty of artists including Doug Aitken, Andrea Bowers, Diedrick Brackens, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha and Jonas Wood. Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, paid tribute to Halsey; Danson and Steenburgen celebrated Fonda.
The Fowler Museum on Tuesday returned 11 objects to the Larrakia community of the Northern Territory in Australia. The items, which hold deep cultural and spiritual significance to the Larrakia people, consist of 10 glass spearheads and a kangaroo tooth headband worn by a Larrakia elder. Elders have worked closely with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the museum over the last four years to identify and arrange the return of the objects. This particular return ceremony is the second time the Fowler has returned artifacts in partnership with AIATSIS. Last July, the museum repatriated 20 items to the Warumungu community of Tennant Creek in northern Australia.
More culture news
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced its 2025-26 theater season — the first with President Donald Trump as chair. “Hamilton,” as previously reported, is out. Offerings include plenty of Trump-approved Broadway fare, including “Moulin Rouge,” “Chicago,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Back to the Future: The Musical” and “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”
Tony Award winner Charles Strouse, who composed the music for “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” has died. He was 96.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
You can opt to be buried up to your neck in compost at this California spa. I love a good spa day, but this is a hard pass for me.
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