Thomas Guide Los Angeles & Orange

Thomas Adès’ Dante—a ballet score in three parts based on Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia—was recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel at a concert performance last spring at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Nonesuch Records releases the album, the work’s premiere audio recording, on April 21, 2023. Dante was first performed at the Royal Opera House as part of Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project for the Royal Ballet, with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and with designs by visual artist Tacita Dean.

Victoria de los Angeles was one of the finest lyric sopranos in the decades after World War II. She was born Victoria Gómez Cima. She learned to sing and play piano and guitar while still in school. She entered the Conservatorio de Liceo in Barcelona to study piano and singing, completing the six-year program in three, and graduating with full honors at the age of 18. Her membership in the Conservatory's Ars Musicae gave her wide exposure to the art song repertory and Baroque and Renaissance music.

John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, first performed in 2012 in Los Angeles, is something of an expansion on the composer's El Niño, a Passion story adorned with a variety of contemporary themes and musical materials. Like the earlier work, it features a libretto by longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars, and it may be sung on-stage as an oratorio or presented as an opera.