SoCal Museums Free-for-All and lots of opera: L.A. arts and culture this weekend

Los Angeles Times

14-03-2025

Sunday is this year's SoCal Museums Free-for-All, an annual tradition in which more than 30 museums and cultural institutions across the region offer free admission for the day to their art, film, natural history and other cultural offerings.
It's not a question of if you go, but which one(s) you'll visit: among the many options are the Autry Museum of the American West's exhibition on romanticism in Western art, the Skirball Cultural Center's retrospective of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, the Bowers Museum's exploration of Aka Chen's titanium creations and LACMA's shows on digital image manipulation and 21st-century Black artists, to name a few.
Check SoCal Museums online for more information such as exhibition exceptions, reservation details, parking prices and TAP card discounts to museum stores. Can't make it to a museum on Sunday? Several are always free — including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Broad, the Getty Center and Villa, California African American Museum and the Hammer Museum — and L.A. County residents with a public library card in good standing can access passes to many others for free or at minimal cost. Also, bookmark this calendar of free days around town.
I'm Ashley Lee, here with my fellow Times staff writer Jessica Gelt with more arts and culture must-sees and must-reads:
L.A. OperaIt's a full weekend of L.A. Opera offerings: first, it's 'The Three Women of Jerusalem (Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén),' this year's commissioned community production from composer-librettist Carla Lucer that imagines the lives of the unnamed women who wept for Jesus just before the crucifixion, as depicted in the Eighth Station of the Cross. Both performances on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, sung in Spanish with English supertitles, are free to attend with online reservations. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple Street, Downtown.
Saturday night is all about 'Coming Home: Angel Blue in Concert,' in which the acclaimed soprano performs with jazz singer Sacha Boutros, sopranos Kathleen O'Mara and Gabrielle Turgeon, and the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts Gospel Choir. And Sunday brings another performance of 'Così fan tutte,' which runs through March 30. Times classical music critic Mark Swed gave the production a mixed review, praising its 'fine singers' of a composition 'flooded with Mozartian beauty that offers the depth of thought and feeling of the first modern opera.' Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown. laopera.org
'Hamlet (Solus)'Independent Shakespeare Co. consistently presents L.A. with 'the right take by a savvy interpreter who knows how to reinvigorate a 400-plus-year-old text for contemporary audiences,' as Times contributor F. Kathleen Foley wrote in 2019. The theater's latest show: a solo performance of the Bard's classic tragedy, conceived and performed by the company's managing director David Melville. The 90-minute production, directed by Cary Reynolds, incorporates instrumentation into the world-premiere staging. Performances run Thursdays through Sundays until April 13; free tickets are available to anyone displaced by the L.A. fires. Independent Shakespeare Co. Studio, 3191 Casitas Ave, Suite 130, Atwater Crossing. iscla.org
American Contemporary BalletThis month, the dance company is putting on two of its most popular presentations: 'ACB Jazz,' which blends ballet with the signature styles of the 1920s and '30s, and all to the sounds of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Johnny Dodds (through March 21); and 'Homecoming,' featuring drill and yell squad choreography — on pointe! — and set to a live marching band (through March 28). Bank of America Plaza, 333 S Hope St, Suite C-150, Downtown. acbdances.com
— Ashley Lee
FRIDAY 3/14Ain't Too Proud – The Life And Times Of The Temptations The Broadway jukebox musical features the Motown vocal group's biggest hits including 'My Girl,' 'Just My Imagination,' 'Get Ready' and 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone.'7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Fred Kavli Theatre, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. bapacthousandoaks.com
Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández The troupe's performances feature music, dance and costumes spanning pre-Columbian civilizations to today.8 p.m. Friday; 1 p.m. Saturday. The Soraya, Cal State Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. thesoraya.org; 3 and 7 p.m. Sunday. The Luckman, Cal State L.A., 5151 State University Dr. theluckman.org
Sound and Science: From Signal to Noise Sonic artists Celia Hollander and Jenna Caravello, Ivana Damaa, Iman Person and Paige Emery explore 'eco-acoustics' as a post-object art form in this unique concert.8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Tchaikovsky & Schubert German conductor Joana Mallwitz makes her long-awaited L.A. Phil debut with Grammy-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich.11 a.m. Friday. 8 p.m. Saturday. 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
SATURDAYBourgeoisie: Mozart + Haydn + Handel Pianist Awadagin Pratt joins the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for a classic Mozart overture and the composer's 23rd piano concerto; Jeannette Sorrell returns to conduct Haydn's Symphony No. 8 in G major, 'Le soir,' and selections from Handel's 'Water Music.'7:30 p.m. Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. laco.org
RENT In Concert Hear Jonathan Larson's long-running Broadway musical in a new way with this symphonic experience.7:30 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
Rolling Loud California The self-proclaimed 'World's Largest Hip-Hop Festival' expands its horizons with its first non-hip-hop headliner, Peso Pluma, joining ASAP Rocky, Playboi Carti and more than 75 other acts.
SUNDAYCarmina Burana The Los Angeles Master Chorale performs Carl Orff's epic cantata, plus the world premiere of a new work by Reena Esmail.7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
Look What SHE Did! Short Film Festival Six female filmmakers screen and discuss their work.3 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
My Fellow Americans Artist Tod Lippy exhibits 50 portraits that address the nation's political divide.Open 24 hours, until 6 p.m. Thursday. 626 N. La Cienega Blvd. todlippy.com
Starring Gene Hackman The American Cinematheque continues its tribute series to the late actor with Arthur Penn's 1975 neo-noir 'Night Moves' in 35mm.Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com
'Little symbolizes L.A. resilience like the Mahlerthon. Five hundred young musicians can't be wrong,' writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed in his review of Gustavo Dudamel's 'Mahler Grooves' festival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, yes, 500 talented members of local student orchestras.
The Corita Art Center — dedicated to the life and work of Sister Mary Corita — opened in downtown L.A.'s Arts District, and Scarlet Cheng has the scoop for The Times. The new facility has offices and exhibition space, and also stores more than 30,000 pieces of art and ephemera.
Three artists — Mariana Castillo Deball, Sarah Rosalena and Shio Kusaka — have been commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to create pieces for the new David Geffen Galleries. These monumental works will join Chris Burden's 'Urban Light' installation of city streetlamps and Michael Heizer's 'Levitated Mass,' as civic landmarks and Instagram favorites.
LACMA also announced that it will open portions of its new campus to the public this summer, including and the new location of Ray's + Stark Bar and the LACMA store, both slated to open later this year. And jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington will play shows in the galleries in late June.
Athol Fugard, one of South Africa's most acclaimed playwrights, has died. He was 92. Fugard took an unflinching look at the effects of apartheid in works including 'The Blood Knot' and ' 'Master Harold' … and the Boys.' In an appreciation, Times theater critic Charles McNulty writes, 'For all the political freight of Fugard's works, he was a deeply personal writer. It wasn't so much ideas or arguments that inspired his plays but human beings in all their messy complications.'
The Getty has acquired the archive of American artist Raymond Pettibon, best known for his punk aesthetic and documentation of the rock 'n' roll scene in Southern California in the 1980s. The collection includes drawings, posters and concert fliers that became synonymous with Pettibon's iconoclastic persona.
The Trump administration fired the bulk of workers in the General Services Administration's fine arts and preservation units, which are responsible for preserving and maintaining more than 26,000 pieces owned by the U.S. government, including Alexander Calder's 1974 'Flamingo' at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago and Michael Lantz's 1942 'Man Controlling Trade' outside the Federal Trade Commission building in D.C.
— Jessica Gelt
Rashid Johnson, esteemed artist and … model?