Ravinia Festival creates role of conductor laureate for beloved leader James Levine

This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
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Longtime music director will renew his summer residency, conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and leading master …

Chicago Opera Theater’s end-of-season gala involves surprise guest Philip Glass

This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
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Celebrate with Philip Glass and COT! COT’s End of Season Gala involves surprise guest Philip Glass!
April 12, 2016 …

Jeremy Piven leads intimate discussion with Kevin Spacey at Gene Siskel Film Center benefit

This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
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“Kevin Spacey: Renaissance Man,” features In-Depth Conversation with Golden Globe and Emmy Award-Winner Piven and Spacey …

Lyric Opera’s ‘Rising Stars’ concert reflects program designed to help young talent shine

Report: They were everywhere onstage all season, and seven are taking their final bows. It’s time to cut the cake for the gifted young artists who are emerging from the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s high-level Ryan Opera Center multi-year training program. They are venturing forth, some with bookings already in hand.

In ‘Hamilton’ immersion, Chicago school kids embroider the musical with riffs of their own

Report: I wish every adult attending the hit musical “Hamilton” could see it the way nearly 20,000 Chicagoans in their mid-teens will experience it over the coming months. And not just because of the $10 tickets for a show that generally costs hundreds. What each student comes away with is a personalized connection to America’s birth.

‘Eugene Onegin’ at Lyric Opera: As anti-hero, Mariusz Kwiecień summons a tragic elegance

Review: Love took a glorious beating in the final grand opera of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s season, but then it has been pretty much that way since October. Prince Tamino and Princess Pamina lived happily ever after, but otherwise things ended badly for the aspiring lovers of 2016-17. Now the Lyric gives us Tchaikovsky’s cynical anti-hero Eugene Onegin, brought to life in a devastating package of elegance and self-deluding condescension by baritone Mariusz Kwiecień. ★★★★

Channeling film-maker Eisenstein, Muti directs epic struggle in Prokofiev’s ‘Ivan the Terrible’

Review: Even for Riccardo Muti, it was an extraordinary night at the symphony. The maestro’s latest musico-dramatic assemblage, Prokofiev’s “Ivan the Terrible,” received its Chicago Symphony premiere featuring longtime Muti friend Gérard Depardieu as Russia’s ruthless Tsar Ivan IV. The performance was nothing short of operatic in the majesty of its vision, the grandeur of its pageantry and the grip of its blood-red emotional palette.

Elizabeth DeShong carries a torch for tragic bel canto – and for Bernadette, Bette, Judy

Interview: Enough with comedy. This singer, now featured in “Norma” at the Lyric Opera, and soon to kick back with other rising stars at a “Beyond the Aria” event at the Harris Theater, believes the world is poised for a major revival of coloratura-tinged drama, bel canto’s serious side. Her inspirations include opera’s Marilyn Horne, but she admires those legendary Broadway belters, too.

‘A Disappearing Number’ at TimeLine: Infinity as starting point in a story of incalculable love

Review: Who are the rare humans able to unlock secret patterns of the universe, sharing their discoveries as music, science, mathematics or metaphor? You might think of Michelangelo or Bach. Copernicus or Newton. Shakespeare. Einstein. But Ramanujan? If this name stopped you, then you’re a candidate for TimeLine’s fascinating romance “A Disappearing Number.” ★★★★

‘Norma’ at Lyric Opera: Radvanovsky’s fiery priestess sets the tone for blazing melodrama

Review: There is no Verdi at the Lyric Opera of Chicago this season, but there is plenty of Italian spectacle from the generation prior. Donizetti’s crazed “Lucia di Lammermoor” bowed earlier this season, and now comes Bellini’s “Norma,” the bel canto saga of a Druid high priestess betrayed in love. Sondra Radvanovsky stars in a majestic turn. ★★★★

Lyric’s ‘Flute’ is a time-bending gift from ’50s, backyard fun boxed in spirit of Disney magic

Review: The ultimate holiday gift for arts lovers this season is Lyric Opera of Chicago’s rambunctiously retro world premiere production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” set triumphantly in the world headquarters of the baby boom. Which is to say, a backyard of the ’50s and ’60s, as seen through the eyes of a child. This nostalgic feat is an exceptional musical delight and a fine show for families of all ages. What makes this show giftable is its extended January run. ★★★★

In a ‘Curious Incident,’ a special boy grapples with the twists, turns and illogic of growing up

Review: Christopher is determined to a) solve the mystery of who has killed his neighbor’s dog and b) take a math advance-placement exam. The story that takes flight is music for the soul. Now playing through Dec. 24 at the Oriental, this brave and wonderful Broadway in Chicago national touring production is about the dignity of the adolescent passage, as seen through the eyes of a brilliant boy in constant danger of sensory overload, and his ever-present companion, a pet rat. ★★★★

‘Fundamentals’ at Steppenwolf: Downstairs at posh hotel, no Up button for the service crew

Review: The time is right for “The Fundamentals,” a sly new play by Erika Sheffer now upstairs at Steppenwolf. With mega-corps in the news for claiming ignorance of malfeasance so widespread it involves thousands of workers — while simultaneously selling the perfume of lofty company ideals — Sheffer zeroes in on the souls who draw the paychecks and suffer the joke. ★★★

‘Christmas Carol’ rings out again at Goodman: Scrooge & Co. affirm spirit at heart of the deal

Review: For his ninth season, Larry Yando plays the gnarled old man whose very name is now a synonym for miser, his “Bah! Humbug!” an all-purpose slapdown that distills the essence of a curmudgeonly world view. Until Scrooge discovers joy, that is. Yando’s wonderfully long face is as capable as ever of rubbery contortions worthy of a cartoonist’s pen. Goodman’s “A Christmas Carol” is a tradition happily renewed. ★★★★

Comic sequel to ‘Pride & Prejudice’ bundles bookish romance into shining Christmas play

Review: Less than halfway through “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley,” a happy world premiere in the spirit of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” I found myself wishing that Elizabeth Bennet had eight sisters, not four. That way I could look forward to more Austen sequels by the playwright team of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon. They have done a pitch-perfect job assimilating the 19th-century novelist’s way with words while spinning entirely new adventures for the bookish, presumably unmarriageable, middle sister of the Bennet household – Mary. ★★★★

In season of grandeur and magic, Lyric Opera scores with simple charm of ‘Don Quichotte’

Review: Ambitious out of the gate, the 2016-17 Lyric Opera of Chicago season gave us Part I of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, with Rhinemaidens, giants and a dragon. In December the company will offer Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” with trials of fire and water, a feathered bird-catcher and another dragon. In between we have seen high-flying coloratura (“Lucia di Lammermoor”) and a new high-tech stage toy in Berlioz’ “Les Troyens.” Time now for some simple old-school tradition? Whyever not? The Lyric’s presentation of Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” is pure operatic comfort food. ★★★★

James Levine, a musical soul for all ages, appears before the CSO and it’s all poetry

Review: Celebrating his splendid Indian summer, James Levine rolled up a long ramp to a custom-designed maestro’s podium at Orchestra Hall, took a hi-hello spin, and settled into a love-fest with the Chicago Symphony, starting with some absolutely irresistible Mozart. It is impossible to overstate the importance to American culture of this brilliant musician who, despite physical infirmity, is capable of unforgettable concerts when conditions are right.

This is going to sound mad, but for Lyric star scary-difficult role of Donizetti’s Lucia is easy

Report: One of the great dramatic coloraturas of our day will go mad for the last time at Lyric Opera of Chicago on Nov. 6. But it’s impossible to believe that Russian singer Albina Shagimuratova won’t be back. The bond she forged with Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud a decade ago is strong. Shagimuratova is at the top of her game now. But when she first sang for Anthony Freud, she was in her mid-twenties, fresh from the Moscow State Conservatory. She didn’t know the first thing about building a career.

Young maestro walks into house Reiner built, confronts CSO and a daunting Strauss legacy

Review: It must be with a certain prideful reluctance that the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra face each new generation of conductors eager to take their own shot with one of the most famous works in its recorded legacy  – Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra.” The 38-year-old Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada did not score a clear success despite a lot of bounce and body language in every single beat.

CSO reports artistic, financial gains but shows little progress in restoring its recording legacy

Report: As orchestras around the country claw their way toward better health in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) shared some upbeat news on Oct. 26 at the orchestra’s annual meeting. The love affair between the orchestra and its celebrated music director Riccardo Muti still flourishes.

‘Hamilton,’ energized by spirit of America’s founding, opens Chicago run in stylish blaze

Review: “Hey yo, I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and hungry and I’m not throwing away my shot” is the clarion call of young friends in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical “Hamilton,” a contemporary re-imagining of our own history. The Broadway show’s first regional clone has opened at Chicago’s PrivateBank Theatre, where it will be for many months, probably years. ★★★★★

Amid tragic power of Lyric Opera’s ‘Lucia,’ Shagimuratova touches the soul of bel canto

Review: For Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece “Lucia di Lammermoor,” the Lyric Opera of Chicago has chosen well to wrap the dazzling young Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova in the vintage production of British director Graham Vick. Despite its age, there’s something very modern about Lucia’s murderous disintegration in Vick’s not-to-miss installment at the Lyric. The role of the innocent and doomed Scottish lass Lucia features one of the greatest mad scenes in all of opera. ★★★★

CSO trombonist proves master of the mystical in premiere of Vine suite ‘Five Hallucinations’

Review: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was back in the new music business this week, as the remarkable virtuoso trombonist Michael Mulcahy, a member of the CSO’s brass battalion, performed the world premiere of a freely associative five-movement extravaganza for trombone and orchestra by Australian composer Carl Vine.

DiDonato, Muti conjure Martucci song cycle, then the CSO delivers a Beethoven thriller

Review: Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti has long and eagerly shared his love for some 19th-century Italian composers who are otherwise slipping into history. For Giuseppe Martucci’s formidable song cycle “La canzone dei ricordi” (Song of Remembrance), Muti brought in another persuasive advocate, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. An electrifying Beethoven Seventh Symphony lit up the concert’s second half.

To young lives at risk, Muti and 2 opera stars bring close encounter with voice in full glory

Report: Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was about to make her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut with music director Riccardo Muti in a rare Italian work, and bass-baritone Eric Owens, over at the Lyric Opera, was readying the role of Wotan, king of the gods in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, for the first time in his career. Yet these three internationally celebrated artists made time to perform for youths within the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, where boys in conflict with the law, most in their mid to late teens, are held for an intensive period of education and intervention designed to set them on a safer course.

Strawdog Theatre, ousted from its old home, opens with play about another loss: memory

Season Preview: The following is adapted from a news release submitted by an arts organization to Chicago On the Aisle.
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STRAWDOG THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF JERRE DYE’S “DISTANCE” AUGUST 25 – OCTOBER 1

Goodman Theatre announces weeklong Leonard Bernstein Celebration during revival of ‘Wonderful Town’

Report: As rehearsals of the 1953 musical “Wonderful Town” get underway at the Goodman under the direction of Mary Zimmerman, the Theatre announced free events surrounding Leonard Bernstein’s legendary show, which kicks off the 2016-17 season. Several film screenings are planned, and a class for the general public on conga line and swing dancing.

At the Goodman Theatre, Leonard Bernstein’s musical ‘Wonderful Town’ starts busy season

2016-17 SEASON PREVIEW: The following is adapted from a news release submitted by an arts organization to Chicago On the Aisle.
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Lauren Molina and Bri Sudia star as two sisters leaving Ohio in 1935 to conquer New York City in Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town.” Here’s the Goodman Theatre’s complete line-up…

Redtwist 2016-17: ‘Death of a Salesman,’ new works on theme ‘Home is where the HURT is’

2016-17 SEASON PREVIEW: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
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Redtwist Theatre is pleased to announce its 13th Season!
“Turtle,” a world premiere by Jake Jeppson, and Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” are in the mix.

City Lit announces a 2016-17 season of world premieres plus a seldom-seen comedy classic

This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.——

Works by P.G. Wodehouse, Shirley Jackson and Dion Boucicault to be staged along with world premiere of Douglas Post’s “Forty-Two Stories”