Commentary: In its small-scale fashion, last weekend’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra program with conductor-violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider was the sleeper delight of the season thus far. To say it was a half-orchestra affair might be generous. Compared with the forces arrayed on stage at Orchestra Hall for Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” the week before, the diminutive band assembled around Szeps-Znaider barely filled the dimensions of a chamber orchestra. But what a sound that handful of musicians made, and what a display of style, polish and wit.
Read the full story »CSO percussionist needs fast hands, and feet, to cover the challenge of a wild new concerto
Interview: If there is anyone in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra whose onstage attire should include a pair of sneakers, it is principal percussionist Cynthia Yeh, who will be at the center of attention for three concerts Oct. 3-5 as the soloist in the widely anticipated U.S. premiere of Avner Dorman’s free-wheeling concerto “Eternal Rhythm.”
‘Bernhardt/Hamlet’ at Goodman: Actress dons breeches to play a prince, sans all that poetry
Review: In early 1899, at the heady height of her dizzying fame, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt reopened a Paris theater she had acquired and renamed after herself. Almost immediately, this ever controversial star was upsetting norms again by playing the title role in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” That audacious gambit reimagined is the stuff of Theresa Rebeck’s plainly titled play “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” now on semi-satisfying view at Goodman Theatre. ★★
‘Barber of Seville’ at Lyric Opera: Girl power prevails amid vocal fireworks, lots of laughs
Review: In love and determined to get her way, an awesome spitfire turns to Figaro, the barber, for assistance in Rossini’s gleefully funny opera buffa, “The Barber of Seville.” It’s now playing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a Broadway style production, with sun-drenched Moorish touches, roving set pieces on wheels, and a motley crew of singing comedians. ★★★★
Muti and CSO begin Beethoven cycle with leap from alpha to titanic ‘Eroica’ as the true omega
Review: When the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had sounded the last blazing notes of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony to end the first concert in a season-long traversal of the nine symphonies with music director Riccardo Muti, I found myself wondering: Where do we go from here? Onward, of course. But upward? In this most universally embracing and aspiring of musical forms, did Beethoven ever actually transcend the “Eroica,” mind you, his third symphony? What Muti and this virtuoso orchestra did with the monumental “Eroica,” on Sept. 26 at Orchestra Hall, was exhilarating to witness.
‘King Hedley II’ at Court: Peripheral Wilson propelled to center stage with bruising force
Review: Of the 10 plays that make up August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, a decade by decade series of tableaux depicting the African American experience through the 20th century, “King Hedley II” may be the least familiar to theater audiences. But this grim, ultimately crushing drama is by no means the least potent. Witness Court Theatre’s knock-out production featuring a stellar cast under the wise direction of Ron OJ Parson. ★★★★★
Muti, poised to lead CSO in Beethoven cycle, hears symphonies as nine cosmic questions
Interview: Fresh from Italy’s Ravenna Festival, where he conducts and teaches every summer, Riccardo Muti, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is plunging into a season-long cycle through Beethoven’s symphonies in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1770. “It will be a document of my admiration and love for the Chicago Symphony,” Muti says. The venture begins with the First and Third Symphonies in concerts Sept. 26-28 at Orchestra Hall.
‘The King’s Speech’ at Chicago Shakespeare: In his personal storm, a monarch finds a port
Review: It’s the most improbable of buddy plays, David Seidler’s “The King’s Speech.” It just happens to be true, and its essential humanity is on captivating display in a masterful production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The most common of commoners, an obscure Australian speech therapist on an extended visit to London, is confronted by the most regal of royals: the soon to be crowned George VI of England, who suffers from a lifelong stutter and will find himself thrust into the roiling vortex of a world on the brink of war. ★★★★★
Theater 2019-20: Court begins Oedipus cycle, continues Wilson, reframes ‘Iliad’ in a museum
Seventh in a series of season previews: Ask Court Theatre artistic director Charles Newell to sum up the company’s coming season, and he could begin with quite a list of projects, and he does – eventually. But at the top of Newell’s mind is the big, one might say really big, picture. “Artistically, financially, any way you might want to measure it,” he says, “this is the most ambitious season in Court’s history, and the riskiest.” The season opener is August Wilson’s “King Hedley II,” with Kelvin Roston, Jr., in the title role.
Muti and CSO open with calm Mendelssohn, suppressed cry of pain from Shostakovich
Review: Riccardo Muti launched the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new season with a fresh revival of Shostakovich’s dark Stalin-era Sixth Symphony, which seemed relevant and contemporary under his command. Then Grieg’s Piano Concerto sparkled anew with Leif Ove Andsnes’ light keyboard touch.
Theater 2019-20: Move to a new home in view as Northlight dots 45th season with premieres
Sixth in a series of season previews: With one world premiere looming up, only to be followed immediately by another, Northlight Theatre artistic director BJ Jones’ hands and plate and time are pretty well filled. But in the cracks he’s also planning ahead to 2021-22, when Northlight expects to relocate from Skokie to a brand-new building in Evanston. This season’s opener, Jane Anderson’s “Mother of the Maid,” about that visionary girl Joan of Arc and her mom, runs through Oct. 20.
Theater 2019-20: Steppenwolf leaps into a year filled with rivalries, yearnings, truths and bugs
Fifth in a series of season previews: Sport meets dreams in multi-cultural America in a Steppenwolf Theatre season that bounces across continents and generations, sometimes in the same show. The lineup includes two world premieres. Or, as associate artistic director Leelai Demoz puts it, the Steppenwolf prospectus is dotted with “entry points” for self-discovery, self-realization and the painful embrace of hard truths.
Theater 2019-20: Goodman turns its spotlight on women in themes personal, social, funny
Fourth in a series of season previews: It wasn’t exactly planned that way, says Goodman Theatre managing producer Adam Belcuore, but when all the pieces were in place for 2019-20, the company had settled on a season dominated by women and women’s issues. “Whether consciously or unconsciously, we arrived at a female-centric season,” says Belcuore. Goodman opens Sept. 16 with the world premiere of Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.,” essentially a one-woman play about the real-life abduction of his mother.
Davis to step down as Lyric’s music director; Italian Enrique Mazzola will take reins in 2021
Report: Andrew Davis will step down as music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago at the end of the 2020-21 season, to be succeeded by Italian conductor Enrique Mazzola, the company announced on Sept. 12. Mazzola, principal guest conductor at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and until recently artistic and music director of the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France in Paris, made his Lyric debut in 2016 with Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.” He returned in 2018 to lead Bellini’s “I Puritani.” He will conduct Verdi’s “Luisa Miller” at the Lyric in October.
At Stratford Festival, veteran struts his comic stuff as Falstaff and madcap Coward character
Review: It isn’t exactly a double-header, but it surely is a Wyn-Wyn for the Stratford Festival’s versatile star actor Geraint Wyn Davies. His delightful romps as Shakespeare’s roguish Sir John Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and as Noel Coward’s do-over divorcee in “Private Lives” are reason enough to make the Ontario festival trek from just about any distance. ★★★★/★★★★
Theater 2019-20: Victory Gardens will churn American melting pot, the stuff of our totality
Third in a series of season previews: “Diversity is what makes this country unique,” says Victory Gardens Theatre artistic director Chay Yew. “As Americans, we inherit all American histories. Our coming season is about our diversity – the differences that represent our totality.” The season opens with Janet Ulrich Brooks playing a personal advice columnist in an adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things.”
Theater 2019-20: Shattered Globe cues plays bringing new perspectives on this old world
Second in a series of season previews: Sandy Shinner, in her sixth season as artistic director of Shattered Globe Theatre, describes a common thread running through the company’s new season of three plays as “seeing the world in a new way.” One’s personal world, she means, of course: “You think you know where you stand, then something happens and you have to recalibrate.” Shattered Globe opens with Deborah Zoe Laufer’s “Be Here Now,” an edgy comedy about a confirmed nihilist whose peculiar crisis is finding happiness.
‘The Glass Menagerie’ at the Shaw Festival: In a broken world, illusion collides with reality
Review: Before the scripted play begins in the Shaw Festival’s searing production of Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the actor who will play the trapped, desperately yearning Tom Wingfield performs magic tricks for the audience. Wearing a knitted cap, he looks like a street person. Maybe we aren’t looking at a prelude at all; perhaps this is the epilogue – the fate of an aspiring poet who ultimately flees from his dead-end life as sole provider for his domineering, erstwhile Southern belle of a mother and his crippled, withdrawn, psychologically damaged sister. ★★★★★
‘Into the Woods’ at Writers: Fairy-tale delights spun on life’s loom – fantasy and hard lessons
Review: The woods are as menacing as ever, but the production of “Into the Woods,” the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical fairy tale currently running at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, is utterly luminous. Sondheim and Lapine pulled off a miracle with their 1986 show, deftly exploring the deep philosophical and moral questions lurking below the surface of a seemingly frothy mashup of fairy tales featuring, among others, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack (of beanstalk fame) and a wily witch. ★★★★★
Theater 2019-20: From woods to tennis court and date with Death, Writers plots a fresh trek
First in a series of season previews: Contemplating the diverse and intriguing 2019-20 series of plays underway at Writers Theatre Artistic director Michael Halberstam sums up the challenge of programming and its progression from year to year. “I’d like to think we learn something every season,” he offers with unembroidered simplicity. “We want to be in tune with the times, to reflect the moment – to present a genuinely diverse season.”
Stratford Festival: Othello may be no match for Iago, but these two actors go toe to toe
Review: When the full, remorseless malevolence of Shakespeare’s villain Iago spills across the stage, it can be hard to find the title character in “Othello.” But even pitted against Gordon S. Miller’s sinister nemesis in the Stratford Festival’s current production, Michael Blake brings front and center both the heroic stature and the tragic vulnerability of a great general brought down by a handkerchief. ★★★★★
Romp in the woods at American Players: A lusty, stylish go at ‘She Stoops To Conquer’
Review: Oliver Goldsmith’s broad comedy “She Stoops to Conquer” has been around for nearly 250 years, one of the few 18th-century British plays to hold the stage in this country despite the great displacement of time and place. Charming, LOL funny and warm-hearted, “She Stoops to Conquer” is a smashing success at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. It’s an ensemble coup but also a particular triumph for Laura Rook as an aristocratic girl who sheds her fine mantle to win the heart of a hopelessly shy peer. ★★★★
Tennessee Williams’ rare gem ‘Creve Coeur’ gets a lyrical polishing at American Players
Review: “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur,” an obscure play by Tennessee Williams from late in his life, serves up a touching, trenchant, typically insightful and empathic look at aging womanhood – four women in this instance – in a production at American Players Theatre that reveals a hidden gem by the incomparable singer of America’s Southern song. ★★★★★
‘True West’ at Steppenwolf: Warring brothers
go to the mat over fame, fortune and spelling
Review: It’s a surreal encounter and also a never-ending story, Sam Shepard’s slugfest of a play “True West,” which sprawls across the stage at in a lusty, mad and magnetic production at Steppenwolf Theatre. The tattered remains of actors Jon Michael Hill and Namir Smallwood, who had just endured a mutual pummeling as contentious brothers unexpectedly and most unhappily reunited, shared in bravely earned applause at the show’s opening July 16. ★★★★
Shakespeare at American Players: Some have greatness thrust on them; others, not so much
Review: American Players Theatre, now in its 40th summer of primarily outdoor productions in a charming little arena in the hills of Spring Green, Wis., some 30 miles west of Madison, has always regarded Shakespeare as its badge of honor, reference point and indeed its reason for being. That tradition is manifest in a spirited and sure production of “Twelfth Night,” but a dubiously conceived and oddly cast “Macbeth” betrays this excellent company’s allegiance to the Bard. “Twelfth Night” ★★★★ “Macbeth” ★★
‘King Lear’ at Redtwist: The existential Bard, pared to the core of being – and nothingness
Review: Redtwist Theatre, the fearless vest-pocket company in Edgewater, winds up its season, the last for co-founder and artistic director Michael Colucci at the helm, with its first venture into Shakesespeare: a lean, uneven “King Lear,” but one altogether imposing in Brian Parry’s assured, fierce and affecting performance in the title role. ★★★
‘The Music Man’ at Goodman: He’s a what, he’s a what? He’s a music man. No, he ain’t.
Review: Yes, my friends, we got trouble, right here in Windy City. I’m talkin’ about a Goodman Theatre production of “The Music Man” – a musical, the last I heard – that’s about as musical as Amaryllis’ cross-hand piece at the piano. And by the way, the show also lacks an actor in the title role with a real feel for that two-bit, gol-dang, smooth-talkin’, tin-horn, two-timin’ salesman: someone, in short, who knows the territory. ★★
Kalmar, Grant Park forces take on Beethoven’s mighty Missa Solemnis and serve up a thrilla
Review: It’s hard to say which was the more remarkable, music director Carlos Kalmar’s sheer chutzpah in programming Beethoven’s monumental and indeed daunting Missa Solemnis for the Grant Park Music Festival or the thrilling success of the June 28 performance by all the vocal and instrumental forces involved.
Lyric Unlimited presents a brand-new opera for young audiences: ‘Earth to Kenzie’
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to and edited by Chicago On the Aisle.
Tickets on sale June 27 for performances at Chicago’s Vittum Theater November 9-10, …
Sneak a peek into the ‘Top-Secret Personal Beeswax Journal’ of lovable Junie B. Jones
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to and edited by Chicago On the Aisle.
Lincolnshire, IL – Live a day in the life of an ever lovable and …
‘If I Forget’ at Victory Gardens: The human comedy in past, present and future imperfect
Review: The ingredients of Steven Levenson’s brutally honest play “If I Forget” are the stuff of human frailty: hubris, folly, hypocrisy, naïveté, denial. All compacted into one dysfunctional family, and sharply etched in a riveting production at Victory Gardens. ★★★★
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