Articles by Lawrence B. Johnson
CD review: Guitarist David Russell’s Albeniz displays mastery of instrument, style
The American guitarist David Russell got my attention a few years back with a CD of Renaissance music that included some very fine readings of works by John Dowland. That same technical finesse and artful musicianship grace this wide-ranging collection of pieces by Isaac Albeniz.
Profiles’ ‘Behanding in Spokane’ bundles laughter and terror in the same dark bag
Sardonic, but clear-sighted. 3 stars
Role Playing: Sadieh Rifai zips among seven characters in one-woman ‘Amish Project’
Interview: Actor Sadieh Rifai thought Jessica’s Dickey’s play “The Amish Project,” at American Theater Company, would be a pretty straight-forward one-woman show. The plays is based on the 2006 shooting of 10 school girls in Pennsylvania. Rifai would be switching among seven characters, but she didn’t see that as a big deal. She was in for a big surprise.
Bernard Haitink charms Chicago Symphony with twin beauties from Schubert and Mahler
Review: Conductor Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra summoned performances of exceptional clarity in Schubert’s chamber-size Fifth Symphony and Mahler’s grand-scaled Fourth Symphony. *****
The Doyle & Debbie Show: Singin’ hits that’ll warm you up like hog rasslin’ in the July sun
At the Royal George Theatre. 4 stars!
Role Playing: Kirsten Fitzgerald inhabits sorrow, surfs the laughs in ‘Clybourne Park’
Interview: Actor Kirsten Fitzgerald portrays two very different characters amid the hurlyburly of “Clybourne Park, the double-edged drama by Bruce Norris now playing at Steppenwolf Theatre through Nov. 13. She’s a grieving mother in 1959 and a self-interested lawyer 50 years later.
It’s a theatrical tour de force that Fitzgerald likens to acting in two different plays the same night.
Finnish conductor answers every question in CSO debut
Susanna Mälkki, the 42-year-old music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 13 with a program of Charles Ives and Richard Strauss that, in every way, placed her among the most important conductors of her generation.
With new honors falling like autumn leaves, Riccardo Muti reflects on the conductor’s art
In Part 2 of an interview with Chicago On the Aisle, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director extols Italian training, calls Toscanini his hero and admits impatience with routine effort – and prima donnas.
Lyric Opera’s ‘Lucia’: New production casts a shimmering light on tale of love and madness
Donizetti’s bel canto dazzler. 5 stars!
After slaughter and heartbreak, radiant grace
Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project,” echoes of a massacre at ATC. 5 stars!
CD review: Back-country music, toned up with Kodaly
This off-beat CD takes the Russian-born violin virtuoso Viktoria Mullova back to her ancestral roots in the Ukrainian outback, in the traditional music of gypsies and other rural folk. 3 stars
Chicago’s fast burn is a dramatic flame-out
John Musial’s “The Great Fire” flames up at Lookingglass. 2 stars
Sidestepping Mahler, Muti points toward Bruckner and plans that will stretch the CSO
In an exclusive interview with Chicago On the Aisle, Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti explains his limited enthusiasm for Mahler and reflects on a lifelong struggle with the immensity of Beethoven.
A portrait of Mahler as maker of worlds and emblem of ours
Fischer’s landmark bio of the great symphonist is now in English. 4 stars!
TimeLine gets Theatre Wing grant as one of nation’s Top 10 emerging companies
Company to get check for $10,000.
CSO marks Liszt bicentenary with an epic and a romp
Celebrating the bicentenary of Liszt’s birth, music director Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra forged a sublime performance of Liszt’s epic “Faust Symphony.”
Images of Rothko, on canvas and in the mind
“Red” paints a master-apprentice face-off at the Goodman. 5 stars!
Role Playing: Janet Ulrich Brooks on nailing the style of a wily Russian in ‘A Walk in the Woods’
Portraying an experienced arms negotiator during the 1980s missile crisis for TimeLine, Brooks manages to be sly, funny and serious — in precisely accented English she learned from an interview with a Russian opera star.
In Lisztian fireworks, pianist’s future looks sky-high
In her Liszt debut CD, Khatia Buniatishvili reveals the heart of an old-school romantic virtuoso. Though she’s still little known in the U.S., the 24-year-old Georgian’s schedule is packed with European concert dates.
Light the lights! Lyric Opera stirs a musical into the mix
Eight operas for 2011-12 include new productions of “Showboat,”Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and Handel’s “Rinaldo.” The new season opens Saturday night with Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann.”
Amid flounces and bustles, good vibes bring rosy cheeks
High-voltage effects “In the Next Room” at Victory Gardens. 4 stars
Art, and artists, mined from an unsuspected vein
“The Pitmen Painters” at TimeLine is a charming mine of creativity. 4 stars!
CD reissues point up Riccardo Muti’s early mastery
Complete Beethoven and Tchaikovsky symphonies are among the many major works in recordings from the 1970s and ‘80s by the CSO’s conductor with the Philadelphia and Philharmonia Orchestras.
From a long life in the opera world, Muti brings Chicago Symphony gifts of drama and poetry
The distinctive qualities of Riccardo Muti’s genius as a conductor, above all a lyrical sensibility cultivated through decades in the opera house, will shape his tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony.
Love, reality and other disquieting intrusions
In “The Real Thing” at Writers’ Theatre, love’s a moving target. 5 stars!
CD review: Beethoven sonatas, with polish and affection
Ingrid Fliter’s fresh take on three favorite masterpieces. 4 stars!
A journey into the daunting forest of arms diplomacy
“A Walk in the Woods” at TimeLine.
Cold War contretemps. 4 stars!
As the Lyric Opera’s poster girl, Fleming proves pitch-perfect
In a chat with high school singers picked for a new Lyric collaboration with the Merit School of Music, the soprano diva Renée Fleming admits she struck out twice competing in the Met auditions — and taking her driver’s exam.
Protecting the old neighborhood, but redefining the threat
“Clybourne Park” at Steppenwolf. Bias on the block. 5 stars!
