Fantasma De La Opera

Pieces for sale will include everything ranging from complete “merry peasant” and “medieval courtier” costumes to individual pieces such as capes, hats, shoes and fans. Highlights of the collection include a number of “diva dresses,” stunning hand-crafted gowns worn by LA Opera’s leading ladies including Carol Vaness (La Traviata, Don Giovanni, The Merry Widow and La Rondine), Jennifer Larmore (L’Italiana in Algeri), Maria Ewing (Fedora), Verónica Villarroel (Idomeneo) and Karita Mattila (Jenufa), as well as costumes worn by superstar tenor Plácido Domingo (Un Ballo in Maschera and Idomeneo). From what I hear, there is only one latex Fly costume so get in line early if you want to nab that one!

Prices will range from $10 for accessories to $20 for hats and masks, complete costumes from $150 all the way up to $5,000 for couture pieces. Cash, check and credit cards are all accepted.

LA Opera is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The Company’s Costume Shop is staffed by dozens of highly skilled employees, including master tailors, cutter/drapers, seamsters and craftspersons, who create hundreds of costumes by hand every year for principal artists, choristers, dancers and supernumeraries appearing in LA Opera productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Sturdily constructed to last and often highly detailed, the costumes are built to fit singers of every size, from robust Wagnerians to petite Mozartians.

The costume sale will be held in the parking lot of LA Opera’s Costume Shop at 330 South Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Parking is available on the street, and there is secured pay parking in the Little Tokyo Galleria parking structure at 333 S. Alameda Street, directly across the street from the Costume Shop.

Happy hunting!

Something that Marc Haefele mentioned in his most recent post on Metblogs has stayed with me since I read it:  his opening sentence wherein he mentions overhearing  “the arts editor of a prominent local weekly… say she didn’t like opera and didn’t know anyone who did.”

Having been to my share of LA Opera performances, some that I have enjoyed more than others, I was shocked to hear of a supposed cultural gatekeeper in the guise of an arts editor coming forth with a blanket disdain for a particular, um, art. Perhaps she needs to broaden her circle of friends and get out more–  or at least find another area of journalism to work in.

I got the same feeling today when I read a theater review in the LA Times by Charlotte Stoudt. Granted, it was a review of Octomom, The Musical, playing at the Fake Gallery on Melrose and Heliotrope. But her opening sentence may have tipped her hand about her feelings towards live theater, along with her qualifications to review it:

“It was only a matter of time before the exploits of Nadya Suleman trickled down to that most lowly of entertainment forms, live theater.”

It left me wondering where on her hierarchy of “entertainment forms” she places, say, WWF or TMZ, which she mentions being well aware of in her review. Something tells me she also is not an opera buff.

And for all we know, you could take her upfront dismissal of theater overall as a ringing endorsement of Octomom.

(jpctalbot’s Green Bottle Fly picture used through a Creative Commons license.)