Saturday, December 7, 2019
Why the Tony Award nominee wanted to tackle the Adam Guettel musical.
SOURCE: Playbill at 10:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 11, 2018
If the plethora of activity in Chicago alone is any indication, the field is experiencing a veritable golden age of new American chamber operas. This season is bringing the local premieres, …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:25PM[SHARE]Monday, February 5, 2018
Since 1955, when Lyric Opera mounted its first production of "I Puritani" to display Maria Callas in one of her most celebrated bel canto roles, Vincenzo Bellini's final opera has drifted in…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:10AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 6, 2017
"Turandot," Puccini's unfinished valedictory to the stage, is an elaborate operatic fairy tale. But for fairy tales to really work, there must be magic and mystery the audience can believe i…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:45PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 11, 2017
What happens when the one and only Bill Murray recites American literature and flexes his pipes on songs from the great American songbook, backed by three accomplished classical musicians at…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:55AM[SHARE]Friday, September 22, 2017
In a major cooperative effort by the city's leading producers of ballet and opera, the Joffrey Ballet and Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Friday that the dance company will move its season …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 25, 2017
"Johnny Johnson" was Kurt Weill's first work for the American theater, written for New York's Group Theatre in 1936, only three years after the German-Jewish composer managed to escape Nazi …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:51PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Contemporary operas about ordinary people crushed by powerful forces they are helpless to control mark another venturesome festival season of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Both "The Grapes…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:15PM[SHARE]Sunday, April 23, 2017
It must be hard for those weaned on digital culture to appreciate the enormous impact Walt Disney and his entertainment empire had on my generation. When I was growing up, owning a Davy Croc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:38PM[SHARE]Sunday, February 12, 2017
Take away the pretty but dramatically irrelevant window dressing, and the "Carmen" that settled in for a long winter's run over the weekend at the Civic Opera House is pretty much your stand…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:27PM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 17, 2017
In a first collaboration between Lyric Opera, L.A. Opera and the Joffrey Ballet, a new coproduction of the 1774 Paris version of Gluck's opera "Orphee et Eurydice" will debut next season in …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 11, 2016
Not to worry, the kids are all right " they are just putting on a Mozart show in their backyard. That's the improbable dramatic premise behind the new production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:39PM[SHARE]Sunday, November 6, 2016
Welcome to Club Fairy Queen, a louche Vegas lounge and hotel run by a sleazy owner-emcee named Puck. The drinks are spiked and the possibilities of erotic adventure are, as result, practical…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:22AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 27, 2016
In the interest of truth in titling, one or more of the exclamation points in "Longer! Louder! Wagner!," Lyric Opera's latest collaboration with Second City, could be removed without inflict…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:24PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 2, 2016
This is the way the world begins. On a darkened stage, lit by a single floor lamp. From the depths of the orchestra emerges the E flat major chord representing the rolling currents of the Rh…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:09PM[SHARE]Sunday, September 18, 2016
Considering how extensively the orchestral, instrumental and chamber repertory of the 18th century and earlier periods has been mined by modern performers, it's strange that the operas of Fr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:18PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 6, 2016
Having devoted its scholarly attention to rarities of Baroque opera, Haymarket Opera Company now has set its sights on rescuing worthy Baroque oratorios from similar modern neglect. As part …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:36PM[SHARE]Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud's bringing in directors from the theater world to help breathe new dramatic life and contemporary relevance into an old art form thus far has produ…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:25PM[SHARE]Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud's bringing in directors from the theater world to help breathe new dramatic life and contemporary relevance into an old art form thus far has produ…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:08PM[SHARE]Sunday, January 24, 2016
Considering Lyric Opera of Chicago's long and honorable history as a haven for the stage works of Giuseppe Verdi, his "Nabucco" has led a curiously spotty performance life at the company onc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:52PM[SHARE]Considering Lyric Opera of Chicago's long and honorable history as a haven for the stage works of Giuseppe Verdi, his "Nabucco" has led a curiously spotty performance life at the company onc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, January 14, 2016
The earnest efforts of general director Anthony Freud and music director Andrew Davis to make Lyric Opera of Chicago a leader rather than a follower among the leading American opera companie…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:30PM[SHARE]The earnest efforts of general director Anthony Freud and music director Andrew Davis to make Lyric Opera of Chicago a leader rather than a follower among the leading American opera companie…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:36PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Seldom has a new opera been overtaken by real-life events quite to the degree that "Bel Canto" has at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Audience members attending the work's highly anticipated world …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:12PM[SHARE]Seldom has a new opera been overtaken by real-life events quite to the degree that "Bel Canto" has at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Audience members attending the work's highly anticipated world p…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:55PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 2, 2015
For many of us, the holiday season would not be the holiday season without the spiritual comfort and joy of live musical performances. Fortunately, festive seasonal sounds are perhaps more a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:57PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 1, 2015
For many of us, the holiday season would not be the holiday season without the spiritual comfort and joy of live musical performances. Fortunately, festive seasonal sounds are perhaps more a…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:33PM[SHARE]Sunday, November 15, 2015
Lyric Opera probably didn't need another new production of "The Merry Widow" so soon after its 2009 Gary Griffin staging of the beloved Franz Lehar operetta. Still, with a lavish, relatively…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:58PM[SHARE]Monday, November 2, 2015
"Wozzeck"
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Four stars (out of four)
Like a grim, silent sentry, a monument to the victims of World War I looms upstage in Scottish director David McVicar's stark and…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:58PM[SHARE]"Wozzeck" Lyric Opera of Chicago Four stars (out of four) Like a grim, silent sentry, a monument to the victims of World War I looms upstage in Scottish director David McVicar's stark and wr…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:35PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Barbara Gaines was giving me a peek at the luminous set and sumptuous costumes that grace her new production of "The Marriage of Figaro," which will open the Lyric Opera season Saturday nigh…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:08PM[SHARE] 
