Remembrance: The last time I interviewed conductor Andrew Davis, in 2021, he was as I shall always think of him: soft-spoken, thoughtful, articulate, self-effacing, an undemonstrative intellectual with a wry spirit and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that lit up his whole being. Of the many testimonials and tributes I’ve read about Davis since his death from leukemia on April 20 at age 80, the one I think he would have liked best was the succinct observation of Jeff Alexander, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, that the British-born conductor possessed “good wit.”
Read the full story »The New Season: It isn’t pizza in Porchlight’s oven, but well-spiced musicals Chicago-style
Third in a series of season previews: A rethought, more visceral Porchlight Music Theatre rolls out its 18th season with two Chicago premieres to be followed by a searing portrait of the faded Billie Holiday and “Pal Joey,” Rodgers and Hart’s anti-hero driven drama on the dark side of the human comedy.
The New Season: Stark Vietnam prison drama, Beethoven riddle define spectrum at TimeLine
Second in a series of season previews: Playwright Susan Felder’s “Wasteland,” a world premiere about two American G.I.’s imprisoned in Vietnam isolation, plus three Chicago premieres make up TimeLine’s 2012-13 schedule; season opens Aug. 24 with a musical riddle.
The New Season: Teaming with Neil LaBute, Profiles readies 24th year on the gritty fringe
First in a series of season previews: Profiles Theatre will open its 24th season Aug. 24 with playwright Neil LaBute officially inducted into the family, a second performing space in use and a new mantra that crystalizes the company’s founding philosophy: “Whatever the truth requires.”
Ravinia favorite Misha Dichter’s double life revealed: The pianist’s a serious cartoonist
Report: Pianist Misha Dichter, who celebrates his 45th consecutive season with the Ravinia Festival on July 29, shares his passion for sketching in a new e-book.
Shakespeare to hit the Chicago parks as CST presents free tour of ‘Taming of the Shrew’
Short “Shrew” in 11 neighborhoods.
‘42nd Street’ at Stratford: By any other name, this musical rose would still be just as sweet
Broadway’s tap classic. 4 stars!
Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s 2013 season will restore focus on the Bard, classic drama
“Romeo” and “Othello” top the list.
‘Richard III’ looses a venomous schemer on summer stage of American Players Theatre
A snake in the palace. 4 stars!
Free outdoor simulcast of Paris Opéra Ballet proves Harris Theater, Pritzker dynamic duo
Review: The best antidote to Chicago temperatures in the nineties is this surpassingly cool prospect — free Millennium Park concerts at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, where the sound is superb and the ceiling’s a canopy of stars. Cooler still was the addition of big screen video to this outdoor mix that a huge crowd enjoyed June 27, when the Paris Opéra Ballet’s exquisite production of “Giselle” was projected live via the big screen, from inside the Harris Theater, to the traditional classical-loving audience of the Grant Park Orchestra. ****
Cirque du Soleil’s East-West revue ‘Dralion’ offers high-flying thrills and fantastic critters
Review: The place where Olympian gymnastics meet the ballet is known the world over as Cirque du Soleil, an impression that’s only redoubled by the company’s latest eye-popping production, called “Dralion.” There may not be any elephants in Cirque’s new show, but the entertainment value is pachydermic. ****
Role Playing: Baize Buzan hones the steel spirit of a brash Irish lass in ‘Cripple of Inishmaan’
Interview: Baize Buzan knew she had the right slant on the feisty, egg-smashing Helen in Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Cripple of Inishmaan” when she heard, distinctly from the audience at tiny Redtwist Theatre: “That awful girl is here again.”
With a winning smile and no visible effort, violinist heats Glass like a modern Paganini
Review: No doubt the large crowd gathered June 23 at the Ravinia Festival’s Martin Recital Hall was drawn mainly by the prospect of seeing 75-year-old composer-pianist Philip Glass perform a program of his own music. And no doubt they came away delighted by the 90-minute sampler of Glass’ music through the decades and his affable flair for story-telling. But the brightest light on this evening was cast by the youthful, California-born violinist Tim Fain, who played – among other things — one prodigious movement from an unaccompanied suite that Glass has written for him. *****
With Muti again managing the house, CSO’s Bruckner Sixth becomes one splendid edifice
Review: One of the fascinations of this Chicago Symphony Orchestra season — which drew toward its close Sunday with the final performance of Bruckner’s Sixth in its sumptuous glory — has been to hear various conductors come into the same acoustical space of Orchestra Hall, stand in the same spot where music director Riccardo Muti stands, and ply their art with the same band of a hundred-plus that Muti conducts. ****
When comedy runs amok, ‘Much Ado’ is nearly undone at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Beatrice as a hysterical wit. 2 stars
Capping second CSO season with Bruckner, Muti pledges Austrian-accented 6th Symphony
Exclusive Interview: When conductor Riccardo Muti recorded Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 in A Major with the Berlin Philharmonic 25 years ago, he came to the task steeped in the Bruckner tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic – a distinctively Austrian way of looking at this thoroughly Austrian Late-Romantic composer. Now, to close out his second season as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Muti says he will bring that perspective to the Bruckner Sixth on June 22-24.
Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric Opera music director, adds the Melbourne Symphony to duties
Will shuttle between continents.
Role Playing: Stephen Ouimette brews an Irish tippler with a glassful of illusions in ‘Iceman’
Interview: It is Harry Hope’s grumpy largesse that fuels the pipe dreams for the drunken inhabitants of Eugene O’Neill’s play “The Iceman Cometh.” And Harry, says actor Stephen Ouimette, who portrays the tragi-comic Irish saloon keeper in the Goodman Theatre’s production of “Iceman,” is one complicated lush.
Unveiling truth in ‘Blonde, Brunette, Redhead’ in more ways than meet the hoodwinked eye
Blood and wigs at Writers’. 4 stars!
Redtwist puts an intimate spin on dark humor of McDonagh’s rough and quirky ‘Inishmaan’
Cripple Billy’s adventure. 4 stars!
Stratford Festival’s Shakespeare tradition echoes in the well-told tale of ‘Cymbeline’
Young love put to the test. 4 stars!
Shaw Festival: Catching America’s cultural swing to the syncopated beat of ‘Ragtime’
Turn of the century saga. 4 stars!
Sophistication meets innuendo: Shaw Festival puts fine edge on Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’
Matinee idol preens, pouts. 4 stars!
‘My Kind of Town’ reconstructs police torture scandal as a complicated drama of real life
Cops under gun at TimeLine. 4 stars!
Role Playing: Ian Barford revels in the wiliness of an ambivalent rebel in Doctorow’s ‘March’
Interview: He’s just making it up as he goes along, the Confederate turncoat portrayed by Ian Barford in Steppenwolf Theatre’s current production of “The March.” That’s what Barford likes about his opportunistic character called Arley. And in a sense, the actor says, he’s doing much the same thing on stage from night to the next, trying to track the pitch and roll of a soldier who’s trying to find his own meaning.
In lightning-quick Beethoven 7th Symphony, van Zweden and CSO deliver a poetic thriller
Review: It’s one thing to hear a hair-raising orchestra performance on a CD, and quite another to experience it happening right in front of you, live, in the splendorous acoustics of a concert space. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s rocket-sled finale in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony on May 15 at Orchestra Hall, with conductor Jaap van Zweden, was one to send a writer combing his thesaurus for a higher form of wow. *****
Amid war to win vote for British women, flames of passion illuminate ‘Her Naked Skin’
Suffrage at Shattered Globe. 4 stars!
Chicago Symphony nabs key player from Detroit to helm bass
Alexander Hanna, 26, was groomed at Curtis, Tanglewood and Verbier.
On the Lyric Opera stage, pianist Lang Lang lends Schubert, Chopin a tenor of virtuosity
Review: Lang Lang’s debut at Chicago’s 3500-seat Civic Opera House was quietly elegant, cogently argued and intensely focused. That is, until the abundantly gifted pianist gave himself over to some astonishing fireworks. With a technique like that, who can blame him? ****
Vivid characters and some great singing carry the day for ‘A Little Night Music’ at Writers’
Sondheim’s paean to love. 4 stars!
‘Melancholy’ cometh, draped in dolorous fun, as Grey Ghost Theatre bows with Ruhl’s play
Review: When Tilly shows up, she elevates the common funk to dolorous heights so seductive, transporting and rarified — cue the cello — that only the Japanese have a word for it, or is it the Scandinavians? This is Sarah Ruhl’s 2001 “Melancholy Play,” a gentle misery-loves-company fable of high wit. ***
Worth A Visit
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