Commentary: Pianist Yevgeny Kissin offered two encores after his typically astonishing recital program May 17 at Orchestra Hall. We’ll get to the first one in due course. The second, which can still be heard and seen, was unprecedented for this beloved pianist and very possibly unexampled anywhere ever: a video apology that Kissin posted to explain to his “dear listeners, dear friends” why he had played just one encore when he’s famous for lavishing them by the double handful.
Read the full story »From ‘Great’ Schubert to revelatory Mahler, Honeck scores again with Chicago Symphony
Review: For the second time this season, conductor Manfred Honeck has ascended the podium of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to shed new light on a major work that is oh so familiar. Back in November, it was Schubert’s “Great C major” Symphony. This go-round, it’s Mahler’s Fifth Symphony that Honeck explores as if wired into the composer’s creative mind.
‘All My Sons’ at Court: The sins of a father, unatoned and brought down on two houses
Review: It’s as Greek as Aeschylus, the inexorable tragedy that infects and ultimately destroys two families in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.” And in the marvelous, shattering production at Court Theatre directed by Charles Newell, a long Greek shadow falls across Miller’s characters, amid the torment and self-deception, in spectral silence. ★★★★★
Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, in heady debut with CSO, lights up Bernstein, Bartók
Review: Mark the name of 37-year-old Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, who made his subscription debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Jan. 18. My guess is that few in the audience had heard of him, that no one who was there will forget him, and that he will soon be back.
Catering to opera-goers hungry before show, Lyric’s restaurant, bistro take it up an octave
Around Town: Lyric’s onsite restaurants are fiercely dedicated to the principle that Yes, you absolutely will make curtain, and Yes, you can come back to your table at intermission for coffee, dessert, and the rest of the wine.
‘Rose’ at Greenhouse: Linda Reiter reprises her grand turn as matriarch of the Kennedys
Review: The steely mother in Laurence Leamer’s one-woman show “Rose” shares a view back through the prism of her privileged life that is severe, magical and mixed. Linda Reiter as Rose Kennedy, cool-hand mom to a brilliant, driven brood that includes stars John, Bobby and Teddy, spells out how so queenly a matron might be at once proud and happy, marginalized and resigned. ★★★★
Ailyn Pérez replaces Erin Wall as Marguerite for Lyric Opera’s new production of ‘Faust’
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Canadian-American soprano Erin Wall has withdrawn from “Faust” at Lyric Opera of Chicago to undergo chemotherapy, Anthony Freud, …
Chicago native Janai Brugger joins ‘Turandot,’ another bright spot in Lyric Opera production
Second Look: It was soprano Janai Brugger’s scheduled mid-run insertion as Liù, in Puccini’s “Turandot,” that drew me back for a second look at the Lyric Opera of Chicago production. But while Brugger’s performance rewarded my reprise, the experience also underscored some important truths about this last of Puccini’s operas – and about the real merit of the Lyric’s success with it.
Sinfonietta unfurls evocative musical tapestry of a Langston Hughes African-American epic
Preview: Chicago Sinfonietta’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. tribute concert is consistently the orchestra’s best-attended event of the year, says music director Mei-Ann Chen. But this year’s MLK affair – Jan. 15 at Orchestra Hall — will also be Sinfonietta’s most ambitious enterprise: composer Laura Karpman’s musically multicultural setting of Langston Hughes’ epic poem about the African-American experience, “Ask Your Mama.”
Muti to lead CSO in Kennedy Center, Carnegie concerts, kicking off East Coast tour Feb. 7-17
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Music Director Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will make a five-city, eight-concert East …
‘The Light’ at New Colony: Lovers sparring, teasing; then the earth opens and pain erupts
Review: Gen is trapped in a numbing confluence of righteousness and anger, paralyzed between the ideal of goodness and the reality of imperfection. She’s the everywoman – specifically, every black woman — of Chicago playwright Loy Webb’s stunning new work “The Light,” now in its world premiere production by The New Colony. ★★★★★
Monte-Carlo Ballet to make Auditorium debut with re-imagined classic ‘Sleeping Beauty’
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the national ballet company of Monaco, comes to the Auditorium Theatre …
Firebrand sharpens the edgy musical ‘Lizzie’: Rough day for Mom and Dad in old Fall River
Review: The Firebrand Theatre’s production of “Lizzie” sides with the popular fiction that Lizzie Borden killed her dad and stepmom with axe whacks aplenty. But then this rock musical proceeds to imagine why. The answer puts Lizzie squarely in the tradition of Sweeney Todd and Hamlet and Clytemnestra and the girls of the “Cell Block Tango.” They had it comin’. ★★★★
Grant Park Festival will celebrate youth, honor composer Bolcom at 80 and roll out premiere
Report: A large-scaled world premiere for chorus and orchestra, a celebration of composer William Bolcom’s 80th birthday and a parade of stellar young soloists highlight plans for the Grant Park Music Festival’s 2018 summer, announced June 9. Centerpiece of the 10-week series of free concerts, June 13-Aug. 18 at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion and other venues throughout the city, will be the premiere of an as yet untitled work for orchestra and chorus by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds.
More than 120 shows offered at bargain prices for February run of Chicago Theatre Week ’18
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Tickets for Chicago Theatre Week (#CTW18), an annual celebration of the rich tradition of theatre-going in Chicago, will go …
Russian-born pianist Igor Levit, 30, receives Gilmore prize in novel undeclared competition
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
NEW YORK — Pianist Igor Levit has been named the recipient of the 2018 Gilmore …
Auditorium Theatre to launch Tuesday tours spotlighting building’s history, architecture
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
The Auditorium Theatre announces new evening tours on Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m., beginning Jan. 16, when visitors will have the …
Lookingglass Theatre Company appoints Rachel L. Fink as its new Executive Director
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Lookingglass Theatre Company’s Board of Directors announces the appointment of the theatre’s new Executive Director Rachel L. …
Lyric Unlimited presents Lawrence Brownlee in Chicago premiere of ‘Cycles of My Being’
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization and submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Lyric Unlimited, a division of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is excited to present Cycles of My Being, …
Free event opens Writers Theatre 2018 tour of ‘The MLK Project: The Fight for Civil Rights’
This Just In: The following is a news release written by an arts organization, submitted to Chicago On the Aisle.
Writers Theatre opens its 12th annual tour of The MLK Project: The Fight for Civil Rights, written by Yolanda Androzzo, …
‘Violet’ at Griffin: When a young woman’s scar cuts to her heart, bus ride to healing beckons
Review: The scar on the young woman’s face cannot be seen, but it is real – as real as the invisible wound in her soul. And so she leaves her southern farm on a bus for Tulsa to see a faith healer, in hope of once more finding beauty in the mirror. What she ultimately finds is unexpected, and far more profound, in the bittersweet musical “Violet,” offered by Griffin Theatre in a production notable for both its charm and its grit. ★★★
One, two, (maybe) three: Muti again waltzes Vienna through beloved New Year’s concert
Preview: When Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concert for the fifth time in his career, it will be 11:15 a.m. in the city of Mozart, Beethoven and Johann Strauss Jr., but only 4:15 a.m. in Chicago. Worry not, there are multiple ways to enjoy this event, which epitomizes the close friendship that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director has had with the esteemed Vienna Philharmonic, dating back some 47 years.
‘Red Velvet’ at Chicago Shakespeare: A black Othello who shocked staid old Covent Garden
Review: Covent Garden’s greatest tragedian has collapsed in the midst of his 1833 “Othello” run, requiring the theater to swap in a substitute for the traditional blackface role of the Moorish general who commits a crime of passion against his fair-skinned wife. Perhaps London might delight in the novelty of a 25-year-old “African” actor to save the day. Dion Johnstone stars in this emotionally charged drama – based on an actual event – by British playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, who likes her humor dry. ★★★★
Chamber operas tell Christmas and Hanukkah tales, with magic to capture hearts of children
Review: A joyful musical double bill by Chamber Opera Chicago was on view at the Royal George Theatre on Dec. 19 for the conclusion of a two-performance run. The traditional holiday staging of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Christmas tale “Amahl and the Night Visitors” was paired with Victoria Bond’s modern-day Hanukkah tale, “The Miracle of Light.” ★★★
In Rachmaninoff concerto, Denis Kozhukhin embodies glittering wave of Russian pianists
Review: Pianist Denis Kozhukhin’s imposing and poetic turn through Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jaap van Zweden on Dec. 16, drove home a striking reality about today’s pianistic landscape: It is dominated by a clutch of Russians in their forties or younger.
Role Playing: Kathleen Ruhl went for laughs, but resisted harsh character that gets them
Interview: Actress Kathleen Ruhl loves to hear an audience laugh. It’s always been one of the joys of her long stage career. Naturally, in her role as the flinty, straight-talking mom to two adult children in Suzanne Heathcote’s “I Saw My Neighbor on the Train and I Didn’t Even Smile” at Redtwist Theatre, she savors the laughter that rings off those close walls. But for Ruhl, the mirth came in a bitter pill.
‘Turandot’ at Lyric Opera: Recapturing mythic exoticism with theatrical flair, on a grand scale
Review: A dark and mythical love story set long, long ago in an imaginary locale in China, Giacomo Puccini’s final opera, “Turandot,” has traditionally brought out the grand in grand opera. And so it does again in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s lavish production, which is dominated by a massive, eye-grabbing sculpture of a serpentine dragon that undulates across and through a steeply raked set with an array of other changing scenic touches. ★★★
Wrapped in tradition or rapped in new beats, ‘Christmas Carol’ sparkles at Goodman, CST
Review: While Larry Yando’s indelible Ebeneezer Scrooge is once again delighting children and tapping into adult truths in Goodman Theatre’s indispensable staging of “A Christmas Carol” (★★★★), the Q Brothers are back at Chicago Shakespeare rapping Dickens’ parable on greed and misanthropy to a reggae beat (★★★). The Spirit of Christmas Present walks among us anew.
‘Saw My Neighbor on the Train’ at Redtwist: Amid pain and plain talk, generations collide
Review: Just when you think you’ve seen the ultimate dysfunctional family on stage, along comes Suzanne Heathcote’s gritty play “I Saw My Neighbor on the Train and I Didn’t Even Smile,” a stunner that touches a core of hope in a mesmerizing production at Redtwist Theatre. ★★★★
Role Playing: Kate Fry’s vivid Emily Dickinson sprang from poet’s fine-tuned, evocative verse
Interview: Volumes have been written about Emily Dickinson, but it was through the reclusive poet’s own words that Kate Fry found her way into the heart she illuminates in William Luce’s one-woman play “The Belle of Amherst” at Court Theatre. “In the poems, and in her letters, you get these clear images of what was speaking to her intellect on any given day,” says Fry, “the things she felt compelled to put down on paper.”
‘The Minutes’ at Steppenwolf: At a small-town council meeting, comedy takes shattering turn
Review: The individual agendas of the Big Cherry village council members, in Tracy Letts’ comedy-chiller of a new play “The Minutes,” are credibly various and amusingly personal. What really resonates, however, is the one thing they all hold in common — the raw, elemental conviction that safeguards and perpetuates Big Cherry as a community. ★★★★
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