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 »Review: As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has no other festival planned for the current season, let us declare the past two weekends – two completely different but equally marvelous musical encounters — as Rozhdestvensky Fest. After leading his scheduled week of Shostakoivch concerts, the 84-year-old Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky took over for an ailing Riccardo Muti in a second, more intimate program.
Review: There was a palpable sense of past, present and future in the Civic Opera House on Feb. 8, when the Lyric Opera of Chicago presented Richard Strauss’ exquisite 1911 opera “Der Rosenkavalier,” his domestic comedy of love and loss in the Mozartean vein. The tale swirls around the gentle crisis of a beautiful but lonely Viennese countess who feels her youth slipping away, sung by Illinois soprano Amanda Majeski, a promising singer at the threshold of a significant career. ★★★★
Review: Inevitable in every theater season is the sleeper play, the one you overlook: the curiously titled unknown quantity you don’t quite connect with as a lure from the hearth on a cold Thursday night. Such an unforeseeable beauty and memorable winner, a genuine sleeper, is Michael Healey’s “The Drawer Boy” at Redtwist Theatre. ★★★★
Tasting Report: The name Gallo may invoke a vast enterprise that produces a raft of wines under a great many labels. But the company also has another side, one more suggestive of a boutique operation, that offers a robust, complex Cabernet Sauvignon bearing the imprimatur of winemaker Gina Gallo.
Review: What’s the first image that overtakes you when you think of Shakespeare’s “King Lear”? Perhaps the broken old man, carrying forth the dead body of his youngest daughter. Or the powerless king, cheering the all-shaking thunderstorm as he howls his rage. In the Belarus Free Theatre production on view at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the unwavering focus is the insanity and chaos of life in the king’s repressive regime. ★★★
Review: Life, Tennessee Williams’ plays insist again and again, is a painful passage. Bitter, sweet, paradoxical, farcical. Never mind that other business about sound and fury and nothingness. Williams views the world through a lens of dark existential comedy, and it is on display in all its sad glory in A Red Orchid Theatre’s trenchant take on “The Mutilated.” ★★★★
News Release: CHICAGO — Distinguished Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who is currently in Chicago to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in performances of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 & 15 this weekend February 5 & 6, has graciously agreed to remain with the Orchestra for an additional set of concerts on February 11, 12, 13 & 16. Rozhdestvensky steps in for CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti, who had to withdraw from his February concerts in Chicago due to recovery from a hip operation.
Review: Nina’s life is nowhere. She’s a twentysomething black girl with no real prospects, living in a dumpy apartment and attached – emotionally, financially, perhaps forcibly – to a tough but needy dude with great dreams and no solid plan. Then who should pop back into her tenuous world but her dad, she would say dad in name only, once a big player in the black power movement and recently released from prison. The old man wants something. Nina just wants him out. That’s the setup for Dominique Morisseau’s taut, gritty, redemptive play “Sunset Baby,” in a blistering account at TimeLine Theatre. ★★★★
News Release: CHICAGO — CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti is unable to conduct his February concerts in Chicago due to recovery from a hip operation that was needed following a minor accident. The concert scheduled for February 19 at Holy Name Cathedral will be postponed with a new date to be announced. A guest conductor or conductors for the CSO’s performances February 11-20 will also be announced at a later date.
This Just In: The following is from a news release written by an arts organization.
GARRETT POPCORN SHOPS® WILL DONATE 10% OF ALL FEBRUARY 2016 GOURMET TIN SALES TO BLACK ENSEMBLE THEATER
Black Ensemble Theater’s Greatest Hits …
Review: British playwright Laura Wade’s “Posh,” now on graphic display at Steep Theatre, drives home a somber message: Great wealth rules. Anything is possible or tolerable if you can hand over a blank check to pay the freight or pay for the damage. ★★★
Review: One well might argue that Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” is a less than perfect play. But the neatly framed picture of hypocrisy at its core is so clear, indeed so ringingly universal in its human embrace, that it resonates in any culture. Witness the Russian-language production (with English supertitles) that officially popped the cork Jan. 27 on Shakespeare 400 Chicago, a yearlong aggregation of events dramatic and otherwise spearheaded by Chicago Shakespeare Theater. ★★★★
Preview: This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, and surely nowhere is that big round number being observed with greater zeal, diversity and, well, relentlessness than here in Chicago-Upon-Avon. Throughout 2016, the plays of Shakespeare, adaptations of the plays in various forms and creative applications of Shakespearean themes will be found across the metro area in a coordinated, nonstop festival dubbed Shakespeare 400 Chicago.
This Just In: The following is from a news release written by an arts organization.
American Players Theatre announces 37th Summer Festival Season June 3 – October 16, 2016
Diverse lineup of eight classical and contemporary works
Return of …
News Release: New York Philharmonic Chairman Oscar S. Schafer and President Matthew VanBesien have announced that conductor Jaap van Zweden will become the Orchestra’s next Music Director, beginning in 2018–19, the Orchestra’s 177th season. Mr. van Zweden will serve as Music Director Designate in the 2017–18 season.
12-week engagement runs April 11 – July 2, 2017
Tasting Report: The power, the finesse and the sheer intellectual engagement that stamp top-quality red Burgundy wines were amply displayed in youthful, sharply contrasting examples I recently tasted from two producers in the famed Côte d’Or, Domaine Gille and Domaine René Leclerc.
Review: The best way to experience a performance of Verdi’s “Nabucco” is to think like an actor thinks. Stay in the moment completely. Don’t overthink the logic, the plot complications, the evidence of history. Avoid those traps and the musical impact of “Nabucco” — which is currently on the boards at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where several mighty singing actors are doing terrific work – will thrill you to your bones.★★★★
Review: Terry Teachout’s “Satchmo at the Waldorf,” a one-man bio-drama on the life of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, is an affecting, often surprising and raspingly funny alchemy of brass and clay. it is a lively, engaging fiction but also a credible portrait with a human heart. ★★★
News Release: CHICAGO (January 21, 2016) – Steppenwolf Theatre Company announced today the opening of a new café & bar and 80-seat theater in the building at 1700 N Halsted St., which is connected to its existing main lobby. Slated to open in Spring 2016, the café & bar space will be a warm neighborhood hub serving artisanal coffee, espresso and tea by La Colombe by day while gradually moving to traditional bar service for the evening hours.
Tasting Report: It’s always such a smile-inducing pleasure to come upon a wine that exceeds all expectations in its price class. A terrific example is Sbragia Family Vineyards’ Dry Creek Valley Sonoma Home Ranch Merlot 2012, a wine stuffed with the goods to compete well beyond its modest price of $24.
Season Preview: Not many people can put a ten-year life plan on a single piece of paper. But Anthony Freud, general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, has got his drill down when it comes to the properly balanced life of a grand opera company. Merrily goaded on Jan. 14 by music director Andrew Davis, who was clearly amused, Freud pulled from his pocket, in a tantalizingly brief “reveal,” a carefully folded, well-worn document crammed with the titles of dozens of operas on a grid. Here are the highlights.
Review: There’s a critical difference between a play that is intensely provocative and one that is essentially an unfinished puzzle. Dan LeFranc’s “Bruise Easy,” now in its world premiere run at American Theater Company, falls into the latter category. It is a tale fraught with sex and monosyllables, signifying we know not what. ★★
Mulling Wine: To glimpse the poor, stony soil is to wonder how it could ever produce the grapes that Domaine Santa Duc in turn translates into some of the most seductive wine in the Southern Rhône Valley appellation of Gigondas. But the proof was there in a palate-pleasing, indeed eye-opening vertical sampler of Santa Duc’s single-vineyard, old-vine Gigondas Prestige des Hautes Garrigues.
Digital Preview: With another Artic blast on the way, it’s a good time to check out the world’s top fine arts events available live or on-demand — Joyce DiDonato’s master classes at Carnegie Hall, a “Ring” in Vienna, a new cello concerto in Detroit. And the Lyric Opera of Chicago has just finished recording its new “Bel Canto” for a future PBS broadcast.
Tasting Report: The wines of Tuscan producer Brancaia are well worth seeking out. There’s something exceptional here to meet budgets across a wide range. An array of Brancaia wines were served at an off-beat cheese party at the East Loop Chicago restaurant Tesori, when chef Danny Sweis sliced into a new 80-pound wheel of parmesan.
Tasting Report: One of the great pleasures of a visit to France’s Northern Rhone Valley is the luscious Viognier produced in Condrieu. I would have said it was matchless – until I had the equally happy experience of the Viognier from Darioush in California’s Napa Valley. The Darioush Viognier is a recent discovery for me. I first tasted it in the 2013 vintage – a lovely expression of white wine that in its combination of buttery depth and finesse evoked not only the Viognier of Condrieu but also the plush majesty of the top Chardonnays in Burgundy. And the newly released 2014 may prove to be even better.
Review: Often forgotten but integral, the double bass is the foundation of the orchestra. Without its supportive heft, the majestic edifice of the orchestra would crumble, and the driving harmonic motion it provides would be lost. So it was satisfying and just to see this taken-for-granted but vital instrument move to the front of Orchestra Hall’s stage on Dec. 19 in the hands of Alexander Hanna, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal bass.
Review: In a strictly transcendental sense, Bach being the quasi-divine figure that he is in the pantheon of Western art music, the traversal of his six “Brandenburg” Concertos by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, on Dec. 17 at the Harris Theater, rocked.
News Release: “Bel Canto” — the world premiere opera by Jimmy López and Nilo Cruz that Renée Fleming helped to develop for the Lyric Opera of Chicago — has been chosen for broadcast on the “Great Performances” PBS series. A New York City production team will be in Chicago to film the Jan. 5 and Jan. 8 performances to prepare a national broadcast for the 2016-17 television season. The opera extends through Jan. 17 at the Civic Opera House.