Review: Under the baton of James Conlon, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus presented “Elijah” in performances April 11-13, of which I heard the last. Like the oratorio on its surface, which is to say in its entirety, what I heard was altogether above reproach. The only question was why it was undertaken at all.
Read the full story »In conductor Susanna Mälkki’s return to CSO, her place with the world’s elite is confirmed
Review: In her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in 2011, the Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki was impressive. In her return, Oct. 19 at Orchestra Hall, she looked like the woman who could crack the exclusive men’s club of music directors with the world’s top orchestras. ★★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Premieres and new vitality energize the intimate stage at A Red Orchid
16th in a series of season previews: New faces, new energy, new generation. Kirsten Fitzgerald, artistic director of A Red Orchid Theatre, says the company’s 2013-14 season – consisting of three plays all new to Chicago – reflects the forward-looking spirit of its 21st anniversary on the theme of coming of age.
Musical ‘We Will Rock You’ to test the embrace of Queen’s charm beyond adoring British home
Preview: To the British, the rock band Queen is a lifelong friend. To most Americans, it’s a group from the 1970’s that put out a few good songs back in the day. It remains to be seen how this differing perception will affect “We Will Rock You,” the touring musical featuring Queen’s songs that runs Oct. 22-27 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre under the aegis of Broadway in Chicago.
Lyric Opera’s ‘Butterfly’ displays a fine frame, but the musical drama is a different picture
Review: To behold the grand, airy set for “Madama Butterfly” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, with its curvaceous walkway and layered, mat-like proscenium framing – on display even as the audience assembled — was to sense one’s expectations peak toward something special, uncommon, fine. What ensued was largely unremarkable, even unattractive in various aspects from conducting and singing to basic on-stage movement. ★★
Role Playing: Karen Woditsch shapes vowels, flings arms to perfect portrait of Julia Child
Interview: “Terror is a good place to start,” Karen Janes Woditsch was saying about her beguiling performance as cooking icon Julia Child in “To Master the Art.” “And I started there. I added the ingredients of her character very slowly.”
Theater 2013-14: Next’s season of premieres starts with Chicago link to Anne Frank story
15th in a series of season previews: Next Theatre explores the elusive stuff of secrets and lies in a season of Midwest and Chicago premieres that opens Oct. 15 with Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion,” based on the story of a Chicagoan who spent three decades pursuing the real story of Anne Frank.
‘4000 Miles’ at Northlight: To Grandmother’s house he goes, and she’s worth the long ride
Review: Leo crashes Vera’s apartment in the middle of the night, a sort of grown up waif, lost to the world, clutching the bicycle he has just ridden cross-country from the Northwest to New York’s East Village. They’re a lot alike, Leo and Vera, rebels with or without cause – except that she’s his grandma. Mary Ann Thebus’ savvy, frank, altogether delightful performance provides something real and lasting to take away from Amy Herzog’s semi-developed play “4000 Miles” at Northlight Theatre. ★★
Riccardo Muti and stellar CSO cast honor Verdi bicentennial with a majestic view of Requiem
Review: It’s hardly surprising that anyone familiar with Verdi’s operas would associate his Requiem with that imposing body of music-dramas. The musical language of the one informs the rhetoric of the other. But the difference between Verdi’s stage works and great spiritual drama of the Requiem was the distinguishing feature of conductor Riccardo Muti’s account with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 10, the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Relive Chicago Symphony’s Verdi Requiem: Chicago On the Aisle offers clickable concert
UPDATE: Get your finest audio headphones ready: A video on demand is now available here of the CSO’s first-ever simulcast — Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem with Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, soprano Tatiana Serjan, mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona, tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass Ildar Abdrazakov.
Lyric Opera’s storm-tossed ‘Otello’ weathers sudden cast change not even Iago could plot
Review: Villainous Iago’s creed, which holds that man is the sport of unjust fate, must be on the minds of impresarios everywhere when opening night emergencies befall. So it was at the Lyric Opera’s gala opener Oct. 6, when the Iago of Verdi’s “Otello,” Falk Struckmann, made it only through Act 1. Valiant standby Todd Thomas made the save. The Lyric announced that Struckmann will sing Oct. 9. ★★★
‘Pullman Porter Blues’ at Goodman: Rails hum song of black men’s pride and sacrifice
Review:It is redolent of Chicago, eloquent of a shadowed time that was, Cheryl L. West’s song-filled “Pullman Porter Blues” at the Goodman Theatre. It is a gritty, pulsing, sweet hymn to the generations of black men who made train-travel hum back in the day. ★★★★
Joffrey Ballet and Mariinsky Orchestra recall wonder of Stravinsky’s ‘Sacre du printemps’
Review: Parisians first experienced “Le sacre du printemps” as dance, in Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography for the Ballets Russes in 1913, then shortly after came back to Stravinsky’s stunning music as concert fare. Now Chicagoans have encountered the same sequence — in the Joffrey Ballet’s splendid re-creation of the work two weeks ago at the Auditorium Theatre, followed Oct. 2 by the Mariinsky Orchestra’s supercharged performance at Orchestra Hall with conductor Valery Gergiev.
On grand new stage, ‘To Master the Art’ still whips up Julia Child’s zeal for French cuisine
Review: It is like properly prepared scrambled eggs, this rebuilt production of “To Master the Art,” the story of how a tall, kitchen-clueless Californian became the famous Julia Child: basic, sumptuous, irresistible. If this lovely play, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, possessed an intimate charm in its original 2010 staging at TimeLine Theatre that cannot be replicated in the Broadway Playhouse’s grander proscenium venue, its essential warmth and honesty remain undiminished. ★★★★
Russian soprano’s venomous Lady Macbeth sets tone in Chicago Symphony’s Verdi thriller
Review: Tatiana Serjan is a flat-out thrilling soprano who exudes the temperament of a lioness. She is a Lady Macbeth in her early prime. There isn’t a better place to be this week than Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, where the Russian-born Serjan sings in Verdi’s “Macbeth” under ideal conditions — in concert with other emerging opera stars and the superb forces of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Riccardo Muti. ★★★★★
Muddling the stakes, Chicago Opera Theater drives one through the heart of Verdi’s ‘Joan’
Review: Does the middling label “lesser,” in the habitually repeated rankings of Verdi operas, give presenters a green light to “fix” things that may not be broken? Stage director David Schweizer fell into that trap with the Chicago Opera Theater production of “Giovanna d’Arco.” From a musical standpoint, Verdi’s Joan of Arc opera was a stunning achievement by the 31-year-old composer. COT conductor Francesco Milioto got that. Schweizer, not so much. ★★
To corporate raider, the blood is just business in ‘Other People’s Money’ at Shattered Globe
Review: Larry Garfinkle lives by the numbers, as in quarterly profits and losses. He’s a practical guy, all business, with a nose for blood. When he sees a company in trouble, he moves in, goes for the kill, let the working stiffs fall where they may. And Larry Garfinkle is thoroughly inhabited, from his three-piece suits to his vulgar charm, in Ben Werling’s portrayal at the center of Jerry Sterner’s wry comedy “Other People’s Money” for Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★★
‘Raisin in the Sun’ at TimeLine: Family dreams confront reality in a journey back to the future
Review: The disturbing thing about Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun,” a sharply drawn portrait of America’s racial divide and one black family’s resolve to cross that chasm, is how current it still feels in the season-opening production at TimeLine Theatre, potently and humanely crafted by director Ron OJ Parson. ★★★★
Muti finally presiding, CSO delivers Brahms Second Symphony the Asia tour didn’t get
Review: Ah, so that was the Brahms Second Symphony the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had planned to share with audiences in Asia last winter — on the tour music director Riccardo Muti had to skip because of emergency surgery. With stand-in conductors Osmo Vänskä and Lorin Maazel, the CSO had delivered authoritative, even commanding performances of the Brahms Second on that troubled tour. But to put it plainly, those efforts bore no relation to the exquisite account the CSO summoned Thursday night in its season opener at Orchestra Hall with Muti once again on the podium.
In Verdi’s rarely staged ‘Giovanna d’Arco,’ director sees image of modern fanaticism
Preview: Chicago Opera Theater jumps into the Verdi bicentennial observance this weekend with its season opener, a relatively rare staging of the composer’s early “Giovanna d’Arco.” The stage has not generously embraced this odd riff on Joan of Arc’s life – and death. “It’s one of history’s most extraordinary, mind-bending true stories,” says stage director David Schweizer, “and the audience knows that. But the work is filled with rapturous music.”
‘The Mountaintop’ at Court: In Dr. King’s final hours, coffee served from a cup of revelation
Review: On his last night on earth, exhausted from his civil rights campaign, the threat of assassination constantly before him, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., perhaps hinted at a premonition of his own end when he declared that he had “been to the mountaintop” and “seen the Promised Land.” Playwright Katori Hall spins that intimation into luminous fantasy in “The Mountaintop,” a transmigrational arabesque for two players that now irradiates the stage at Court Theatre. ★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Redtwist bundles premieres and extends hand to young actors, directors
14th in a series of season previews: What Redtwist Theatre artistic director Michael Colucci calls “the storefront premiere” of Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park” and the world premiere of ensemble member Tommy Lee Johnston’s “Geezers” will bookend the company’s 2013-14 season. Redtwist also will embark on a two-fold expansion program designed to create new opportunities for directors and actors just out of theater school.
Theater 2013-14: B’way in Chicago spotlights ‘Phantom,’ ‘Wicked’ and new Motown musical
13th in a series of season previews: Even as “The Book of Mormon” nears the end of its Windy City run, Broadway in Chicago is preparing for three more hit musicals — a new UK touring import for the 27-year-old “The Phantom of the Opera,” the 10th anniversary tour of “Wicked” and the first national tour of “Motown the Musical,” the story of Detroit vinyl mogul Berry Gordy, who made famous The Supremes, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5. There’s also a local angle in this season’s lineup of shows.
Theater 2013-14: Lookingglass will populate stage with people in off-balance moments
12th in a series of season previews: When theatrical characters step out of their comfort zones, you have the makings of keen-edged drama. That’s the essence of a Lookingglass’ Theatre 2013-14 season that boasts two world premieres among three productions.
Theater 2013-14: ‘The Mountaintop,’ Dr. King poised at mortal precipice, opens at Court
11th in a series of season previews: “It’s been a long while since I read a play and without hesitation said, ‘We have to do this,’” says Court Theatre artistic director Charles Newell about Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop,” which imagines Martin Luther King’s last night on earth. King had given a speech that day in Memphis in which he famously touched on a premonition that he would die soon. Hall’s play catches up with him a few hours later in his hotel room, a weary man who strikes up a conversation with the chamber maid.
Theater 2013-14: The lure of a different life links Raven trips to ‘Bountiful’ and beyond
Tenth in a series of season previews: From the season opener, Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” to the finale with Tennessee Williams’s “The Vieux Carré,” the 2013-14 lineup of plays at Raven Theatre centers on what artistic director Michael Menendian calls “that little ache in our heart, the secret longing for a different life.”
Theater 2013-14: Fantasy ‘Old Man, Old Moon’ opens Writers’ season; new home draws near
Ninth in a series of season previews: As artistic director Michael Halberstam began putting together the 2013-14 season at Writers’ Theatre with associate artistic director Stuart Carden, one coincidence seemed too good to be true: Halberstam’s right-hand man had been the teacher, at Carnegie-Mellon University, of an eclectic group of seven buddies called the PigPen Theatre Co., who were the buzz of Greenwich Village for their folksy fable called “The Old Man and the Old Moon.” The charming off-Broadway saga now comes to Writers’.
Theater 2013-14: Joan Allen’s return and five premieres will light marquee at Steppenwolf
Eighth in series of season previews: In a 2013-14 season that artistic director Martha Lavey promises will “make you laugh out loud and think deeply about how we live and love,” Steppenwolf Theatre offers two world premieres and two Chicago premieres – and to open the season an American premiere featuring the long-deferred homecoming of company co-founder Joan Allen.
‘Hamlet’ at American Players Theatre: Agony and wit, and clear view of a timeless tragedy
Review: As summer turns into fall, it’s worth making time to catch Chicago actor Matthew Schwader as that restlessly inquisitive and acid wit, Hamlet, who comes magisterially unhinged in Shakespeare’s masterwork. “Hamlet” is enjoying a gloriously long reign at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. ★★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Irish world premiere tops lineup of 5 shows in Northlight’s 39th year
Seventh in season preview series: Northlight Theatre’s marquee for 2013-14 promises a world premiere turn by actor John Mahoney, the company directing debut of Ron OJ Parson in a Midwest premiere and director Kimberly Senior’s inauguration in her new role as the 39-year-old company’s first artistic associate.
Theater 2013-14: The few, the proud (actors) will fight and fight again in Lifeline war zones
Sixth in a series of season previews: Lifeline Theatre’s 2013-14 season, bannered as “War and Redemption,” will be played out on large canvases indeed – with opening salvos from the Civil War and the French Revolution. The season boasts two world premiere adaptations and a major component of staged tumult.
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Recent Posts
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