There’s still no reason to be bored with the ongoing Met Live in HD series as it hurtles into 2011 with repertoire that continues to veer off the beaten track. Head out to Stonecrest 22 this Saturday at 1 p.m. and you’ll find a slimmed down Deborah Voigt starring in La Fanciulla del West, a lesser-known Puccini exotic. Voigt hosted last month’s Don Carlo, which for tenor Roberto Alagna in the title role was Live with a vengeance. As the cameras crowded in on the usually glamorous Frenchman, you could see a booger roughly the size of a Ford pickup in the Don’s nose as his opening aria played out on the big screen.

No, the operas presented by the Met haven’t gotten dull at all, but there’s a new kid on the block beginning this weekend. Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezualan phenom, leads the first in a series of LA Phil LIVE concerts broadcast to multiplexes all across the nation – including the Stonecrest 22. The first, Dudamel Conducts Beethoven, airs at 5-7pm this Sunday. Two more HD broadcasts, all boasting 5.1 surround sound, are scheduled for LA’s first nationwide season, Dudamel Conducts Tchaikovsky on March 13 and Dudamel Conducts Brahms on June 5.

Famed as the most notable flowering of El Sistema, the pioneering youth orchestra system of his native Venezuela, Dudamel turned up the heat on his celebrity – which has included rousing recordings with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra – by accepting the high-profile musical directorship at LA Phil in 2009 at the tender age of 28.

The Beethoven program this Sunday is arguably the most daring of the three, serving up a couple of intriguing pieces aside from the familiar Symphony No. 7. These will be Slonimsky’s Earbox by John Adams and Leonard Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony No. 1. You haven’t heard either of those at Belk Theater, have you? Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor guests in the Jeremiah and Vanessa Williams hosts.

I’ve been waiting nearly 24 years to go Hollywood on my performing arts beat, so you can bet I’ll be there.

Famed as the most notable flowering of El Sistema, the pioneering youth orchestra system of his native Venezuela, Dudamel turned up the heat on his celebrity – which has included rousing recordings with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra – by accepting the high-profile musical directorship at LA Phil in 2009 at the tender age of 28.

The Beethoven program this Sunday is arguably the most daring of the three, serving up a couple of intriguing pieces aside from the familiar Symphony No. 7. These will be Slonimsky’s Earbox by John Adams and Leonard Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony No. 1. You haven’t heard either of those at Belk Theater, have you? Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor guests in the Jeremiah and Vanessa Williams hosts.

I’ve been waiting nearly 24 years to go Hollywood on my performing arts beat, so you can bet I’ll be there.