{"id":198225,"date":"2026-02-28T16:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198225\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T16:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:09:17","slug":"dalia-stasevska-conducts-philip-glass-akhnaten-at-l-a-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198225\/","title":{"rendered":"Dalia Stasevska conducts Philip Glass’ ‘Akhnaten’ at L.A. Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation. She was 13, growing up in the factory town of Tampere in the south of Finland, and her school librarian gave her a CD of Puccini\u2019s \u201cMadama Butterfly\u201d along with a translation of its Italian libretto.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a teenage girl, this dramatic story touched my soul,\u201d Stasevska says, adding that she still remembers the experience and thinking, \u201c \u2018This music understands me, this is exactly how I feel.\u2019 And that was\u2026when I knew that I wanted to become a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stasevska recently stepped down as the chief conductor of Finland\u2019s Lahti Symphony Orchestra and is a prodigious conductor of orchestral music in all forms. A busy guest baton with companies around the globe, she will make her L.A. Opera debut this Saturday with a production of \u201cAkhnaten\u201d by Philip Glass, running through late March.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

John Holiday in the title role of L.A. Opera\u2019s 2026 production of \u201cAkhnaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Cory Weaver)<\/p>\n

The seminal work by Glass lands at L.A. Opera just a month after the world-famous composer abruptly canceled June\u2019s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 \u201cLincoln\u201d at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. \u201cWhile Philip Glass has pulled out of Kennedy Center, his music will be front and center at our production,\u201d a rep for L.A. Opera wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Stasevska, with her razor-sharp appreciation of the power of Glass\u2019 work, is the ideal conductor to bring it there.<\/p>\n

Stasevska, 41, walks from the ornate foyer of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its emerald green carpets and gleaming chandeliers, to the more ordinary hallways and cubicles of L.A. Opera\u2019s offices. She\u2019s been in town rehearsing for a few weeks and jokes with some of the show\u2019s jugglers in a kitchenette, where she makes herself a machine pod coffee.<\/p>\n

The conductor is petite with large, expressive eyes and a Cheshire cat\u2019s smile. Her mouth often pulls to the right when she speaks, her admirable non-native English tugged easterly in a Finnish accent.<\/p>\n

Opera remains her great love, and it seems a perfect twist of fate that Stasevska was tapped to conduct \u201cAkhnaten.\u201d She saw it for the first time in 2019 at a Helsinki cinema, in a global broadcast of a production by the Met. She couldn\u2019t believe her friend dozed off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018How could you fall asleep? This was the best thing I\u2019ve ever seen in my life. I would do anything to conduct this opera,\u2019 \u201d she recalls saying.<\/p>\n

Stasevska was born in 1984, the same year that Glass\u2019 hypnotic, ritualistic opera, about an Egyptian pharaoh who dared to push monotheism onto his polytheistic culture, debuted in Stuttgart, Germany. Eight months later, Stasevska entered the world in the Soviet-controlled city of Kyiv, the child of a Ukrainian father and Finnish mother.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Conductor Dalia Stasevska, who is making her L.A. Opera debut with Philip Glass\u2019 \u201cAkhnaten,\u201d says that opera is her first great love.<\/p>\n

(David Butow \/ For the Times)<\/p>\n

It was a fluke that she was born in Ukraine. Her parents, both painters, were living in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, also under Soviet rule, but found themselves in a Kyiv hospital close to family when Stasevska arrived. She\u2019s never lived in Ukraine \u2014 she spent her first few years in Tallinn before moving to Finland at age 5\u2014 but her life has been infused with its heritage.<\/p>\n

Her father, who as a teenager in Tallinn began to rebel against Sovietization, insisted on teaching Stasevska and her two younger brothers to speak Ukrainian at home. Her grandmother, Iryna, lived with the family and was an important caretaker for much of her childhood. Stasevska grew up hearing fantastic stories filled with dreamlike imagery of the homeland.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was such a civilized, cultural person,\u201d Stasevska says of her grandmother, adding that she taught her grandkids everything she knew about her home country. That\u2019s why, even though Stasevska was raised in Finland, she grew up eating Ukrainian food and hearing Ukrainian folk tunes. \u201cI know the language and understand the culture,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Stasevska grew up poor, but music education was mandatory for her and her brothers: \u201cMy father said, \u2018This is going to be your profession.\u2019 It was no question that this is not a hobby. So we started practicing immediately, very determined. There was maybe some forcing involved,\u201d she says, laughing.<\/p>\n

She played the violin from age 8, but it was only after she heard Puccini at 13 that she fell in love with classical music. She became obsessed with the opera and orchestral repertoires and was immediately determined to play in an orchestra. She approached the headmaster at her conservatory who placed her in a string ensemble before advancing her to the symphony orchestra as a violinist.<\/p>\n

At 18, Stasevska entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, which is named after Finland\u2019s most famous composer, Jean Sibelius. She couldn\u2019t stop herself from stealing a peek at the school conductor\u2019s score, copying bowings and poring over the details, but she didn\u2019t indulge any dreams of taking the podium herself. \u201cI was going every week to the concerts,\u201d she says, \u201cbut it took me so long to see somebody that looked like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was 20 when she saw a female conductor for the first time, calling it \u201cthe second big moment in my life.\u201d When Stasevska expressed interest in trying it herself, she was referred to Jorma Panula, a legendary conductor and teacher in Finland. Panula invited her to attend one of his masterclasses, and on the first downbeat of her first experience conducting, \u201cI knew immediately that this was beyond anything I\u2019ve experienced in my life,\u201d she says. \u201cIt became this kind of madness moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She loved the sheer physicality of it, she says, but also \u201cthat I can affect the music, and that I can affect the interpretation, because I had so much in my heart that I felt about the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

After completing her conducting studies in 2012, Stasevska assisted Panula \u2014 who emphasized discovering unique \u201cgestures in such a way that the orchestral musicians know what you mean,\u201d she says. She also worked with her fellow Finn, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Stasevska became principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and chief of the Lahti Symphony in 2020.<\/p>\n

When she\u2019s not globetrotting, Stasevska lives in Helsinki with her young daughter and her husband, Lauri Porra \u2014 a heavy metal bassist who is also the great-grandson of Sibelius.<\/p>\n

She likes to champion new music \u2014 her 2024 album, \u201cDalia\u2019s Mixtape,\u201d featured works by Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and other contemporary composers. She is also a vocal supporter of the land where she was born and has spoken out against Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\"Actors <\/p>\n

John Holiday as Akhnaten, with So Young Park, at right, as Queen Tye, in L.A. Opera\u2019s 2026 production of \u201cAkhnaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Cory Weaver)<\/p>\n

Stasevska\u2019s L.A. Opera debut arrives on the same week as the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion. Both of her brothers \u2014 one a film director, the other a journalist \u2014 moved to Ukraine and have borne witness to the war, which has given her \u201canother level of experiencing this horror,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Stasevska has made it her mission to raise funds \u2014 more than 250,000 euros to date \u2014 to provide basic supplies particularly for children and elders who are without power and huddling in freezing cold homes. She has even driven in supplies herself by truck.<\/p>\n

She has also conducted concerts there \u2014 and her next album will celebrate the country\u2019s composers in a meaningful way. \u201cUkrainian Mixtape,\u201d which she recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, features works by five composers who range from the 19th century to the 1960s. Three are premiere recordings of artists who have been completely forgotten, which required a year of searching for materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it will not leave anybody cold,\u201d Staveska says, \u201cand I hope that it will inspire everybody to discover Ukrainian music more, and that we will hear it more on main stages of the world \u2014 where it deserves to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, though, her focus is on ancient Egypt and Philip Glass \u2014 and opera. She says her goal, in every concert, is to give audiences the same experience she had when she was 13, that remarkable feeling that the music uniquely understands them.<\/p>\n

Akhnaten<\/p>\n

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles<\/p>\n

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. select Wednesdays and Thursdays. Ends March 22<\/p>\n

Tickets: Start at $129<\/p>\n

Contact: (213) 972-8001 or LAOpera.org<\/p>\n

Running time: 3 hours (two intermissions)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation. She…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[92233,33244,92231,92228,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,330,92229,92230,5927,92227,92232,12280,92234,1968,26810],"class_list":{"0":"post-198225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-famous-composer","9":"tag-finland","10":"tag-glass-land","11":"tag-l-a-opera-debut","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-headlines","14":"tag-la-news","15":"tag-life","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-music","20":"tag-opera-music","21":"tag-philip-glass","22":"tag-production","23":"tag-stasevska","24":"tag-tallinn","25":"tag-ukraine","26":"tag-ukrainian-father","27":"tag-work","28":"tag-world-premiere"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}