Articles in Classical + Opera
Lyric Opera singers sparkle in summer finale, casting auspicious light on coming season
Review: A concert exhibition of “Stars of the Lyric Opera,” which brought down the curtain on this summer’s Grant Park Music Festival on Sept. 9, offered a promising augury of the Lyric’s impending season, which opens Oct. 1 with Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” – herald of the company’s planned “Ring” cycle.
Freshening Chicago early-music scene, native son leads vocal quintet His Majestie’s Clerkes
Preview: Resounding at sunset in the shadow of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, a new all-male vocal ensemble called His Majestie’s Clerkes is making its debut at St. John’s Cantius as part of Chicago’s rapidly expanding early music scene.
Sticking with true hand of Mozart, Kalmar leads ethereal Mass with Grant Park forces
Review: Conductor Carlos Kalmar took the purist’s path to Mozart’s unfinished Mass in C minor in a performance Aug. 5 with the Grant Park Festival Orchestra and Chorus. But even with the work in its original abbreviated form, the experience was long on the rewards of style, precision and expressive sensibility.
Montana Aisle: Where earth meets cosmos, new Tippet Rise center melds music with art
Report: On the high rolling hills in south central Montana, on a vast spread of land within hailing distance of Yellowstone, an artistic convergence has come to pass in the most improbable of forms: Beethoven has met his second self.
‘Firebird,’ transfigured as ballet with puppets, made image of rebirth in S. African production
Review: The original story behind Stravinsky’s ballet music for “The Firebird” is one of transcendence: evil vanquished and good souls restored to life. So it isn’t such a great stretch to the re-imagined ballet, as a danced parable with giant puppets, presented by Janni Younge Productions at the Ravinia Festival. It tells tell twin tales of personal self-discovery and South Africa’s continuing struggle for social reclamation two decades after the end of apartheid.
James Levine returns to Ravinia and the CSO, and a tempest gives place to maestro’s Mahler
Review: Even Mother Nature fell silent to listen when conductor James Levine made his much anticipated, storm-framed return to the Ravinia Festival on July 23. Levine led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a transcendent performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor (“Resurrection”), the very work with which he had made his emergency debut at Ravinia 45 years ago.
Legacy of African American music lights up Grant Park fare accented by jazz, spirituals
Review: From the pages of African American history, lines of musical heritage intertwined in a concert as appealing as it was fresh and diverse when the Grant Park Festival Orchestra was joined by jazz violinist Regina Carter and the vocal trio TreDiva at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
In Ravinia debut, Russian conductor Petrenko leads CSO in a night of romantic storytelling
Review: It was a night of narratives – not told in words, but hardly less vividly conveyed as the emotional storylines of a Ravinia Festival concert July 20 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Back on Grant Park podium, Christoph König revisits Bruckner with ‘Romantic’ Symphony
Interview: Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”) was the Austrian composer’s break-out work, the one that critics and audiences in late 19th-century Vienna finally took to their hearts. It has remained Bruckner’s most popular symphony, and conductor Christoph König can give you a thousand reasons why. The German maestro will preside over the splendorous Fourth in free concerts July 15 and 16 at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis reaches back to his classical prime to write a violin concerto
Preview: For renowned jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, working in the classical realm does not mean crossing over to some foreign stylistic territory, but rather returning to familiar musical ground. His Concerto in D (for Violin and Orchestra) receives its American premiere July 12 at the Ravinia Festival performed by violinist Nicola Benedetti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Cristian Măcelaru.
Emerson String Quartet to explore late Haydn with one-night immersion at Ravinia Festival
Preview: Philip Setzer, founding violinist with the celebrated Emerson String Quartet, calls the sort of program his foursome will play at the Ravina Festival on July 5 a form of biography: a body of works from the hand of a single composer. In this case, it’s the six quartets of Haydn’s Op. 76, which took the Austrian master – and the form – to a new place.
Slow start to a musical adventure is challenge at Grant Park concert, then the good times roll
Review: The Grant Park Music Festival likes to break from the routine in programming and presentation. Sometimes it does so in dramatic ways, and sometimes the departures are more subtle, as they were during a concert June 29 in Millennium Park’s sprawling Pritzker Pavilion. This evening began at a crawl — until Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen brought vitality, and elegance, to a Chopin piano concerto.
Bruckner 9 was prelude of promise: Muti, CSO to open next season with Seventh Symphony
Review: When Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra open their 2016-17 season at Orchestra Hall in September, it’s going to feel very much like picking up where the current season ended, with one of the splendorous symphonies by the 19th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. To have just heard the Ninth is to look forward to next season’s opener, Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, with electric anticipation.
Julia Fischer takes Beethoven Violin Concerto to rare heights with Chicago Symphony, Muti
Review: Julia Fischer’s exquisite performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Riccardo Muti is one of the CSO’s don’t-miss concerts of this season. And happily, you have one more chance to hear it, on June 21 at Orchestra Hall.
Chicago Symphony unveils Fritz Reiner bust; honor overdue, says advocate Riccardo Muti
Report: The burning gaze of Fritz Reiner, who presided as sixth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1953-62, is back in full daunting view at Symphony Center, where on June 14 the CSO unveiled a new bust of the conductor that will greet visitors henceforth in the center’s outer lobby.
Lawn awaits, stars have got you covered: Downbeat is coming up at Grant Park Fest
Preview: The Grant Park Music Festival is the nation’s only free, outdoor classical music series of its kind, one of the glories of Chicago’s summer. Each year the Festival presents ten weeks of lawn concerts at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. Here are the 2016 highlights.
Tour stop Ravinia 2016: Stars of country, rock, indie, R&B and jazz are headed this way
Preview: Chris Thile will take over as host of Prairie Home Companion when Garrison Keillor hands off the baton later this year, and the mandolin master was on hand for Keillor’s live broadcast concert June 11, kicking off Ravinia Festival’s starry summer lineup. Chicago On the Aisle takes a look at some of the top acts ahead.
Pianist’s CSO debut in Beethoven concerto spins spotlight in a mainly Mozart program
Review: For anyone who heard 34-year-old German pianist Martin Helmchen’s scintillating Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut June 9, the only question is surely this: When will the masterly pianist, a formidable presence in Europe since he won the Clara Haskil International Competition 15 years ago, return to Chicago not only to perform with the orchestra again but to play a recital in the Symphony Center Presents series?
Smorgasbord of Slavonic soul: North Shore Chamber Festival serves up delectable menu
Review: Sometimes, good things really do come in small packages. That’s certainly true of the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, a three-day, jewel-box series in Northbrook that remains too little known on the Chicago classical scene. The sixth annual installment opened June 8 with a captivating program titled “Slavonic Soul.”
With the Bard’s world as stage, Lyric’s Ryan singers, Civic Orchestra share a night of opera
Review: So much talent bound up in such great and joyous commitment. That was the resonant vibe at a Shakespeare-themed concert collaboration between the young professional singers from the Ryan Opera Center training program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the pre-professional training ensemble run by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Tan Dun’s ‘Water Passion,’ Levine’s return highlight Ravinia’s summer classical lineup
Preview: The Chicago premiere of Tan Dun’s “Water Passion after Saint Matthew,” the return of conductor James Levine with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a multi-concert observance of the 100th anniversary of the birth of famed choral conductor Robert Shaw loom large among highlights of the 2016 Ravinia Festival.
Viols and countertenor a novel modernist mix in John Harbison’s reflective ‘Cross of Snow’
Review: A mix of early- and new-music enthusiasts gathered on May 22 in the quietly graceful Church of St. Chrysostom’s, nestled in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast, for the world premiere of a contemplative and compelling new work for four viols and countertenor voice by American composer John Harbison, presented by Second City Musick. A superb group of viols was joined by the outstanding countertenor Nathan Medley.
In a Stravinsky night Dutoit and CSO recapture the blaze of ‘Firebird,’ esprit of Symphony in C
Review: If it is impossible to know what it was like to be at the Paris Opera in 1910 and attend the premiere of “The Firebird” as part of a glittering production of the Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s vivid, voluptuous version of this now-celebrated masterwork, heard May 19, offered at least a strong suggestion.
Old friend of the CSO, Charles Dutoit returns, this time amid shades of Stravinsky and Falla
Interview: Conductor Charles Dutoit’s relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is old and close. But even more deeply rooted in the Swiss-born maestro’s artistic persona is the music, by Manuel de Falla and Igor Stravinsky, that he leads on consecutive May weekends back at the helm of the CSO. In a chat with Chicago On the Aisle, Dutoit recalls vividly the special circumstances of his early experiences involving both composers.
Muti to lead CSO Europe tour in January 2017; stops include new Hamburg hall, historic La Scala
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
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Stops include grand opening week of Hamburg’s state-of-the art Elbphilharmonie and CSO’s first visit to Milan’s La Scala since 1981. More …
In three recipes for novel sounds, MusicNOW serves up appetizing concert-as-smorgasbord
Review: At its May 9 program at the Harris Theater titled “. . . Spring, Or Some Such Thing,” MusicNOW bundled three works for ensembles of fewer than 20 musicians — capped by Christopher Trapani’s flood- and hurricane-inspired song cycle “Waterlines” — into a nicely balanced, easy-to-digest dose of musical contemporaneity.
Haymarket Opera digs into Baroque treasury and finds sparkling Cavalli gem ‘La Calisto’
Review: Thanks to the adventurous Haymarket Opera Company, Chicago audiences experienced one of the jewels of early Baroque opera, Francesco Cavalli’s “La Calisto,” on May 6 and 8 in their own back yard. It was a pure, glistening delight. With a larger stage at their disposal after the move to the spacious Athenaeum Theatre, the company’s seasoned creative team offered a historically informed re-invention of sets and costumes inspired in part by surviving production books from the opera’s 1651 premiere.
Runnicles leads CSO in 2 probing reflections on death (and variations on another enigma)
Review: Rather than grand musical statements or virtuosic solo vehicles, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program May 5 put the focus on quiet introspection, emotional nuance and both the glory and poetry of symphonic sound. All three of the featured works by Britten, Strauss and Elgar were mainstays of the standard repertoire, but guest conductor Donald Runnicles made sure they came off as more than merely routine.
Pianist Yefim Bronfman delivers a grand tour of fire and poetry in Prokofiev ‘war sonatas’
Review: Pianist Yefim Bronfman brought his traveling cycle of Prokofiev’s three so-called “war sonatas” to Orchestra Hall on May 1, and a mesmerizing, virtuosic portrait of the composer in wartime it was. The sonatas represent not so much a sequence of tone paintings of a shattered world as they do states of mind of a keenly attuned composer – one who had, with profound yearning, returned to the bosom of his mother country in the early 1930s after years of wandering in the West.
Bella Voce choristers, and an organ virtuoso, illuminate path back through choral history
Review: Chicago’s intimate chamber choir Bella Voce closed its 2015-16 season April 24 with an intriguing performance of Anglican choral works encompassing six centuries. One needed only to note the enthusiasm of the capacity audience gathered in Evanston’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church to understand why Bella Voce has established itself as one of the pleasures of Chicago’s burgeoning choral music scene.
