LOS ANGELES _ Los Angeles Opera may have been performing "The Abduction From the Seraglio" on Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but the company got two big curtain calls over at Staples Center.
The company won Grammy Awards in two categories _ opera recording and engineered classical recording _ for its 2015 production of composer John Corigliano and librettist William M. Hoffman's "The Ghosts of Versailles." The opera recording award went to a team that included conductor James Conlon, performers Joshua Guerrero, Christopher Maltman, Lucas Meachem, Patricia Racette, Lucy Schaufer and Guanqun Yu, and producer Blanton Alspaugh.
In the orchestral performance category, last year's winner _ conductor Andris Nelsons and Boston Symphony Orchestra _ took top honors again, this time for "Shostakovich: Under Stalin's Shadow _ Symphonies Nos. 5, 8 & 9."
Esa-Pekka Salonen and the L.A. Philharmonic's live recording of Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" lost in the compendium category to "Daugherty: Tales of Hemingway; American Gothic; Once Upon a Castle" (Giancarlo Guerrero conductor, Tim Handley producer).
In the contemporary classical composition category, the winner was Michael Daugherty for "Tales of Hemingway." The chamber music and small ensemble Grammy went to Steve Reich for "Third Coast Percussion." David Frost was named classical producer of the year.
The classical awards were announced in a pre-telecast ceremony during which "The Color Purple" took home the Grammy for musical theater album.
The cast album features Danielle Brooks, Cynthia Erivo and Jennifer Hudson as principal soloists. They were honored along with producers Stephen Bray, Van Dean, Frank Filipetti, Roy Furman, Scott Sanders and Jhett Tolentino, as well as the composer-lyricist team of Bray, Brenda Russell and Allee Willis.
It's a bit of history redeeming itself. "The Color Purple" cast album of the original Broadway musical earned a Grammy nomination in 2007; that year, the award went to "Jersey Boys."
"The Color Purple," based on Alice Walker's novel about African-American women living in rural Georgia in the 1930s, wrapped its first Broadway run in 2008.
Its recent revival, which launched in December 2015, was directed by John Doyle and won the 2016 Tony for musical revival. Erivo took home honors for lead actress in a musical. It wrapped its run at the Jacobs Theater in New York in January; a North American tour set to launch this fall will come to the Hollywood Pantages.
The album from Broadway Records beat out cast recordings from "Waitress," "Bright Star," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Kinky Boots" (London recording).
