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Love with knife in heart or tongue in cheek, Valentine’s Day brings out kiss and scratch
Critic’s Pick: In a tribute to the downside of love, Chicago theaters send superb “anti-Valentines.” If you favor sarcastic greeting cards on the subject of romance, and aloof lyrics about love affairs “too hot not to cool down,” here are some shows that serve up the subject of love on Cupid’s big day with an appropriate grain of salt.
On large scale and small, Rozhdestvensky’s festive visit with CSO leaves fond memories
Review: As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has no other festival planned for the current season, let us declare the past two weekends – two completely different but equally marvelous musical encounters — as Rozhdestvensky Fest. After leading his scheduled week of Shostakoivch concerts, the 84-year-old Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky took over for an ailing Riccardo Muti in a second, more intimate program.
‘The Mutilated’ at A Red Orchid: Two lonely souls touched by Tennessee Williams’ grace
Review: Life, Tennessee Williams’ plays insist again and again, is a painful passage. Bitter, sweet, paradoxical, farcical. Never mind that other business about sound and fury and nothingness. Williams views the world through a lens of dark existential comedy, and it is on display in all its sad glory in A Red Orchid Theatre’s trenchant take on “The Mutilated.” ★★★★
CSO bassist Alexander Hanna, in solo light, finds singing voice in his grand instrument
Review: Often forgotten but integral, the double bass is the foundation of the orchestra. Without its supportive heft, the majestic edifice of the orchestra would crumble, and the driving harmonic motion it provides would be lost. So it was satisfying and just to see this taken-for-granted but vital instrument move to the front of Orchestra Hall’s stage on Dec. 19 in the hands of Alexander Hanna, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal bass.
Six-fold thriller: Lincoln Center chamber group makes a grand sweep of Bach ‘Brandenburgs’
Review: In a strictly transcendental sense, Bach being the quasi-divine figure that he is in the pantheon of Western art music, the traversal of his six “Brandenburg” Concertos by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, on Dec. 17 at the Harris Theater, rocked.
‘Agamemnon’ at Court: Queen welcomes king with smile and nice bath in his own hot blood
Review: Agamemnon, king of Argos and commander of the vast Greek expeditionary force that conquered Troy after 10 years of fighting, is home from the war at last – victorious, exhausted and, not least, wreathed in guilt. That is the proposition of Aeschylus’ tragedy “Agamemnon,” which now enters its final weekend of performances in an imaginative, keen-edged production at Court Theatre directed by Charles Newell. ★★★★★
Role Playing: Brian Parry says he summoned courage before wit as George in ‘Virginia Woolf’
Interview: In the thimble-size playing space of Redtwist Theatre, Brian Parry is reminded every night of the plain truth in playwright Edward Albee’s admonition to any actor who takes on the role of George, the battle-worn husband and semi-satisfied college professor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” – that it will be the workout of a lifetime.
Mozart and Beethoven shine in hands of CSO; dust sticks to erstwhile premiere from archives
Review: What was good was very good in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s concert with music director Riccardo Muti on Oct. 1 at Orchestra Hall. Then came the program’s bizarre second half, which recalled the previous week’s fare and left one wondering just how weird – and musically marginal – the CSO’s 125th anniversary season will turn out to be.
Theater 2015-16: American Blues will trumpet three decades with gritty anthem of ‘Rainmaker’
Third in a series of season previews: Gwendolyn Whiteside, the producing artistic director of American Blues Theater, sees a cosmic – or perhaps the better word is earthly — connection between her company and N. Richard Nash’s play “The Rainmaker,” which opens ABT’s season. “What draws us to ‘The Rainmaker,’” she says, “is its expression of incredible human resilience and the human need for hope.”
Grant Park Orchestra lets virtuoso banners fly with (quiet) indoor Bruckner Sixth Symphony
Review: Knowing that Bruckner outdoors at the Pritzker Pavilion stood no chance against the sonic assault from nearby Lollapalooza, the Grant Park Music Festival moved its July 31 and Aug. 1 performances into the Harris Theater. The festival orchestra’s account of Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony, conducted by Christoph König, allowed the audience to appreciate just how good this ensemble really is.
Musical Stars and Stripes will fly all summer as Grant Park celebrates American composers
Preview: The season programming of a major orchestra may offer a preponderance of German, Russian, and French music, but at this year’s Grant Park Music Festival, Americans make a greater showing. Now in its 81st season, the free Festival in downtown Millennium Park embodies the exploratory spirit of composers who have sought to create an intrinsically American music.
Prelude to a fête française: CSO concert fare anticipates big Gallic do, or has it started?
Review: Although it was not billed as such, the March 19-21 concerts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and conductor Charles Dutoit made it seem as if the French-focus “Reveries and Passions” festival, coming in May and June at Symphony Center, is already underway. Allons-y!
‘Two Trains Running’ at Goodman: As tumult besets their world, diner denizens grasp at life
Review: We need a new word to describe the quality that makes every August Wilson play a red-letter event of any theater season. This single new descriptor would meld the two features that Wilson always mixes with such ineffable ease: charm and poignancy. They are the stuff of “Two Trains Running” at the Goodman Theatre, a beguiling portrait of the human condition as an uphill battle – and the difference a leap of faith can make. ★★★★★
Muti advances campaign for Scriabin as CSO delivers many-splendored Second Symphony
Review: Riccardo Muti’s season of advocacy for the symphonies of Alexander Scriabin must be reckoned a blazing success, even with one work remaining for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director to conduct when he makes his final appearances of the season at Orchestra Hall in June. Scriabin’s Second Symphony, currently featured in CSO concerts that continue through March 3, makes the point of musical merit as well as that of historical neglect.
Role Playing: Eileen Niccolai harnessed a storm of emotions to create spark in Williams’ Serafina
Interview: If you look at this wounded but willful, indeed headstrong and dauntless soul Serafina in Tennessee Williams’ tragi-comedy “The Rose Tattoo” and see nothing less than a force of nature, you’re on the same page with Eileen Niccolai, who brings the belligerent widow to hilarious life with Shattered Globe Theatre.
Hypocrites’ new ‘Pinafore’ adds third dimension to mash-up model of a modern major musical
Preview: Of all the improbable theatrical cross-cuttings, the inspiration for The Hypocrites’ singers-with-instruments spin on the Gilbert & Sullivan canon may take the prize. The model for artistic director Sean Graney’s rethinking of all that lighter-than-air G&S wackiness was a Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s dark, dark (albeit very funny) musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” – where there’s nary a modern major general in sight. On Dec. 5, Graney’s plucky company opens “H.M.S. Pinafore,” then – in repertory – swiftly revives recent Hypocrites productions of “The Mikado” and “The Pirates of Penzance.”
New musical ‘Amazing Grace’ recounts the story of perfect storm that redeemed a slave trader
Preview:The acute historical irony is that the hymn “Amazing Grace” — which is the subject of the Broadway-bound musical that opens Oct. 19 at Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre — was written by an English sailor, John Newton, who had prayed in terror during a storm at sea while engaged in the evil of the triangle slave trade.
Theater 2014-15: Shattered Globe hoists sail with historic saga of Pacific whaling disaster
Third in a series of season previews: The 24th season at Shattered Globe Theatre opens in the spray, rage and terror of Joe Forbrich’s new play “The Whaleship Essex,” a sea thriller that dramatizes an incident in 1820 when the whaling vessel Essex was attacked and destroyed by a giant whale.
‘Brigadoon’ at Goodman: In musical’s bright mist, someone is lost and new meaning found
Review: In this briskly refreshing theater season, the Windy City has performed a hat trick on behalf of the American musical. Three mainstage companies have each expertly revived a Broadway classic through a shrewd rethinking that paired careful respect for the original with sympathy for today’s audience and its contemporary state of mind in changing times. Following Chicago Shakespeare’s heart-stopping “Gypsy” and Lyric Opera’s gorgeous “The Sound of Music” comes Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 “Brigadoon,” which ran for 581 performances on Broadway and is now in resplendent bloom at the Goodman. ★★★★
To wisdom of memorable songs, Sting’s musical ‘The Last Ship’ adds mystery of grace
Review: It’s not often that a composer introduces his first Broadway-bound musical at the age of 64, but then Sting is the sort of artist who never stops spreading his wings. The great rock singer-songwriter has picked up collaborators from his work in film and television and he has even suffered the prolonged torture of a Disney animated movie that morphed so completely his songs were largely cut. Who better to tackle the cut-throat business of the Broadway musical?★★★★
Leading CSO toward finale of Schubert cycle, Muti imparts mastery of Viennese tradition
Interview: Conductor Riccardo Muti’s final two weeks of the season with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra also bring the consummation of his season-long cycle of Schubert’s symphonies. From his perspective “in the middle of the river,” as Muti puts the ongoing project, the CSO is absorbing the style and finesse of his reference ensemble: the Vienna Philharmonic.
Role Playing: Ramón Camín sees working-class values in Arthur Miller’s tragic Eddie Carbone
Interview: Some people will tell you Eddie Carbone, the Brooklyn longshoreman whose life disintegrates in Arthur Miller’s play “A View From the Bridge,” is the tragic victim of his attraction to the beautiful young niece who has grown up as his ward. But not actor Ramón Camín, who says he forged his gripping portrayal for Teatro Vista simply by taking Eddie as a man of his word.
Riccardo Muti sets personal seal on Schubert with CSO’s agile turn through 2 symphonies
Review: At the end of an exhilarating Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert, the third installment of music director Riccardo Muti’s season-long traversal of Schubert’s symphonies, the maestro walked to the lip of the stage with a slightly self-deprecating smile and disarmed his audience with a droll remark about the “Italianate influence” in Schubert’s Second Symphony, which the orchestra had just played. Ripples of laughter ensued, but Muti was serious about the echoes of Salieri and Rossini in the Viennese composer’s music.
To heavenly length of Schubert 9th Symphony, Muti and the CSO bring transcendent poetry
Review: Riccardo Muti’s season-long traversal of the complete Schubert symphonies with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has a few stops remaining, but it’s hard to imagine the musical arc rising much higher than the “Great” C major Symphony heard March 20 at Orchestra Hall.
Ellington left his ‘Queenie Pie’ dream in scraps, and COT bucks odds in bid to make it whole
Review: The Chicago Opera Theater and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra production of Duke Ellington’s late-in-life and largely unfinished Harlem street opera “Queenie Pie” became the casualty of an electrical fire that has temporarily shut down the Harris. The delay adds a footnote to the saga of frustrated restoration attempts that have dogged “Queenie Pie” and left its unfulfilled potential as much in limbo as ever. ★★
World premieres in Grant Park’s 2014 plans; conductors renew ties for festival’s 80th year
Report: World premieres by composers William Bolcom and Christopher Theofanidis and the return of former principal conductors Leonard Slatkin and Hugh Wolff will highlight the Grant Park Music Festival’s 80th anniversary season at Jay Pritzker Pavilion.
Muti, CSO and singers echo private Schubert with belated first glimpse of Mass in A-flat
Review: It is hard to know which to admire more about Schubert’s Mass No. 5 in A-flat, its consummate lyricism and elegance of construction or its honest spirituality, so open-hearted and direct. In both form and content, this luminous Mass shone in a performance Thursday night by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Muti at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★
Carl Nielsen’s merry ‘Maskarade’ a rare, tasty treat as Vox 3 Collective stages Danish romp
Review: A delightful surprise awaits opera buffs in an ambitious, full-length staging of Carl Nielsen’s comic opera “Maskarade,” produced by Vox 3 Collective – in the original Danish, no less – at the Vittum Theater on Chicago’s northwest side. ★★★
Role Playing: Kareem Bandealy tapped roots, hit books to form warlord in ‘Blood and Gifts’
Interview: Our guy – the American – in J.T. Rogers’ play “Blood and Gifts,” about the United States’ clandestine effort to blunt the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, is a CIA agent. We see the unfolding events through his eyes. But the character who elicits our sympathy and commands our imagination is an Afghan warlord called Abdullah Khan. He is made credible flesh and elusive spirit at TimeLine Theatre in a riveting performance by Kareem Bandealy, who says his portrait reflects both his own cultural heritage and the desperation that drives this unpredictable warrior.
‘Still Alice’ at Lookingglass: When dementia seizes a woman’s life, a family is measured
Review: In her play “Still Alice,” author and director Christine Mary Dunford employs a graphic metaphor to illustrate the disintegrating world of Alice, a victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout the play, now in its world premiere run at Lookingglass Theatre, Alice’s kitchen appliances disappear one by one, until nothing remains – until the locus, the defining “here,” of this woman’s life is no longer there. ★★★★
