Review: On Thursday and Saturday nights, May 2 and 4, the fare was exotic classicism, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” spotlighting both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut of conductor Elim Chan and the bewitching solos of associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong. On Friday night and Sunday afternoon, all eyes were on the big screen suspended over the orchestra for a showing of director Steven Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi charmer “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” with the CSO providing John Williams’ indispensable musical score live.
Read the full story »‘The Scottsboro Boys’ at Raven: Wit, pathos and a vaudeville of justice for nine black kids
Review: With any luck, Raven Theatre will elect to have yet a third go, and soon, at Mark Stein’s remarkable play-with-music “Direct From Death Row: The Scottsboro Boys (An Evening of Vaudeville and Sorrow).” This brilliant and heartbreaking show, way out of the box and very funny, based on one of the most deplorable episodes in American social history, is must see theater. ★★★★★
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.
In unvarnished look at ‘Merchant of Venice,’ there is little room for the quality of mercy
Review: In a tradition dating back to Shakespeare’s own time, “The Merchant of Venice,” which frames bitter hatred between Christians and Jews in a metropolis of a distant era, has been labeled as comedy. I doubt that anyone who sees the brutally frank Shakespeare’s Globe production now running at Chicago Shakespeare Theater will come away laughing. ★★★★★
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.
‘War Paint’ at Goodman: Arden and Rubinstein clash in musical battle for cosmetic queenship
Review: To put – what is the phrase? – the best face on it, the new musical “War Paint,” now in its world premiere run at the Goodman Theatre, is a guilty pleasure, a gossip magazine yarn set to music and legitimized chiefly by the stellar performances of Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. ★★★
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.
With a sharp-edged slice through ‘Company,’ Writers reaffirms the promise of its new home
Review: It has been only a half-season inauguration, this first series of plays in Writers Theatre’s splendid new building, but the finale, a sly and penetrating account of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Company,” exemplifies how the main stage offers visitors an intimate, indeed an ideal, theatrical experience. ★★★★
‘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.
Role Playing: Adam Bitterman, unlikely florist in ‘Seedbed,’ dug deep to create a rare bloom
Interview: Adam Bitterman’s earthy and lusty and sometimes unnerving performance as the improbable florist Mick, a middle-aged guy enamored of an 18-year-old girl in Bryan Delaney’s “The Seedbed” at Redtwist Theatre, defies you to take your eyes off him. But the veteran actor had his doubts about even taking on the prodigious part, and this elusive character who finds himself caught up in a family’s sordid conflict.
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.
CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Older California reds emerge from cellar in vigorous prime
Mulling Wine: Rummaging around in my wine cellar, I came upon a few cases I’d put back years ago and simply forgot about. These were various reds from Napa and Sonoma, the heartland of California wine production, and they collectively offered something bordering on revelation: the profound character and age-worthiness of wines we tend to value for their immediate pleasures.
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.
‘The Seedbed’ at Redtwist: Guy walks into bar, sees this beautiful young girl; guy’s, like, older
Review: Maggie and Mitch are so in love. She’s 18 and he could be, oh, three times her age. What’s wrong with this picture? That would depend on which of four perspectives you subscribe to in Redtwist Theatre’s excruciating take on Irish playwright Bryan Delaney’s “The Seedbed.” ★★★★
CHICAGO WINE JOURNAL: Had me at hello; rest of Far Niente tasting turned heads, too
Tasting Report: When your palate is switched on by the greeting wine handed to you at the door of a tasting event, chances are this is going to be an affair to remember. My taste buds got just such a jump start when I chose, well, “red” from the proffered tray, and it turned out to be EnRoute’s lovely 2013 Pinot Noir “Les Pommiers.” EnRoute is a Sonoma venture of the high-profile Napa producer Far Niente, whose diverse labels were spotlighted in this tasting.
‘The SpongeBob Musical’ is deep-sea delight for kids, with a whale of a payoff for parents
Review: Ah, to be 10 years old again, and to take in “The SpongeBob Musical” in all its innocent, fanciful charm, its splendorous undersea-world colors, its goofy but (mostly) good-hearted characters. If you’re 10, the “pre-Broadway world premiere” of “SpongeBob” will for sure get five stars, or maybe starfish, like this: Starfish, Starfish, Starfish, Starfish, Starfish. In real stars: ★★★★
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.
Summer 2016 at American Players Theatre: It’s high drama, comedy where ardor meets Arden
Preview: It’s like seeing Shakespeare in the Forest of Arden, this bucolic Wisconsin festival that bears the name of American Players Theatre. Set in the rolling hills of Spring Green, just west of Madison, American Players has been producing stellar – literally star-covered – theater every summer since 1980. This summer APT juxtaposes Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” with Carlyle Brown’s “The African Company Presents Richard III.” Those timely spirits are already in flight, with many more plays to come. Here’s an overview.
Profiles Theatre, responding to abuse report, ceases operation, leaves website statement
Report: Profiles Theatre, the object of a far-reaching investigative report in the Chicago Reader alleging a culture of physical and psychological abuse by co-artistic director Darrell W. Cox, has ceased operations, according to a message posted on the company’s website.
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.
‘Constellations’ at Steppenwolf: Of relativity, and the infinite outcomes of boy meets girl
Review: Life isn’t like a box of chocolates. It’s more like a roll of the dice, suggests playwright Nick Payne in his touching romance “Constellations,” now on crisp and credible view at Steppenwolf Theatre. In fact, viewed on the space-time continuum, the possibilities of life and love might be as variable as infinite throws of those ivory cubes. ★★★★
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.”
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