What’s your next career move after you’ve portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West? Playing the Prince of Peace, of course.
In a move likely to enrage evangelicals but thrill fans of the movie Wicked, the Hollywood Bowl has announced that Cynthia Erivo, the film’s lead, will sing the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar this summer.
The 1971 musical, which will be performed Aug. 1–3 at the historic amphitheater, will be helmed by two Tony Award winners: director and choreographer Sergio Trujillo and conductor and musical director Stephen Oremus. No other casting has been confirmed.
Another star of both Hollywood and Broadway, Hugh Jackman, will headline the Bowl’s opening-night gala on June 7. The concert, which will raise money for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s music education initiatives, will feature the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Thomas Wilkins.
These are just two of the highlights of this summer’s lineup at the Bowl, announced last week by the LA Phil, the venue’s operator.
Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra’s music and artistic director, will return for his 16th and penultimate season at the Bowl, conducting eight performances total in August with the LA Phil and with Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. The latter ensemble’s appearance will honor the 50th anniversary of the South American nation’s El Sistema program.
Dudamel’s residency will kick off Aug. 5, when he conducts the LA Phil in music of Duke Ellington and accompanies Seong-Jin Cho for both of Maurice Ravel’s piano concertos. Two days later, Dudamel will lead the orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony and accompany Vilde Frang for Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto.
Dudamel will conduct the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra on Aug. 12 in a program that features Yuja Wang performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Then, on Aug. 14, he will lead both of his orchestras side by side in a program that includes Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and the world premiere of Arturo Márquez’s Second Trumpet Concerto, Pancho Flores soloing.
Other LA Phil concerts on the schedule include:
— Thomas Søndergård conducting Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony in a program that will also feature pianist Kirill Gerstein playing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (July 8)
— Hélène Grimaud soloing in Brahms’ First Piano Concerto in a program conducted by Tabita Berglund (July 17)
— Dalia Stasevska conducting a program of music from the Americas by George Gershwin, Alberto Ginastera, and Antonín Dvořák (July 22)
— Los Angeles native and veteran conductor Leonard Slatkin leading Gustav Holst’s The Planets, with the LA Phil’s retiring principal concertmaster, Martin Chalifour, soloing on the same program in Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending (July 24)
— Two of the LA Phil’s principal players, Denis Bouriakov and Emmanuel Ceysson, performing Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, part of a program that will also see former Dudamel Fellow Anna Handler conducting the orchestra in Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (July 31)
— Pianist Daniil Trifonov performing Rachmaninoff’s two most popular concertos, the Second and the virtuosic Third, with Daniel Harding conducting both nights (Aug. 19 and 21)
— Lithuanian conductor Giedre Šlekytė leading an all-Beethoven program, including the “Eroica” Symphony (Aug. 26)
— James Gaffigan conducting Mozart’s Requiem, plus music of Brahms and Ellen Reid (Sept. 4)
— Rafael Payare, music director of the San Diego Symphony, leading the LA Phil in Wynton Marsalis’s new Concerto for Orchestra, plus Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with soloist Alisa Weilerstein (Sept. 9)
— Jonathon Heyward, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducting the Romeo and Juliet music of both Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev in a concert that will also feature Dance Theatre of Harlem (Sept. 11)
A number of film-music programs will also be offered, including “Jaws in Concert” led by David Newman (July 5). Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat will make his Bowl debut in a program of his own film scores (July 15).
Among the artists performing at the recently rechristened Blue Note Jazz Festival will be Grace Jones, the Isley Brothers, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Joe Lovano (July 14–15)
A special preseason concert was also announced for April 1. Titled “We ❤️ LA,” this concert at the Bowl, featuring Dudamel and the LA Phil, will be free for all first responders and people directly impacted by the recent fires in Southern California.
Subscription packages for the Bowl’s 2025 season are now on sale. Single tickets will be available starting at 10 a.m. on May 6. For more information, go to the venue’s website.
