Quamino’s Map is the 22nd opera by the Belizean-born composer Errollyn Wallen who trained at the University of London and Cambridge. The libretto is by playwright Deborah Brevoort and the […]
I gave high praise to Terence Blanchard’s opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The opening night performance at the Lyric was filled with excitement and local luminaries. The following […]
My first opera was at age 10 when our parish priest took us to see La Boheme at the Lyric Opera House. I always thought that opera was sung in […]
The voices! Soprano Michelle Bradley, making her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut in the title role of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, and tenor Russell Thomas as her doomed lover Cavaradossi filled […]
The Magic Flute, a German opera by Mozart, first premiered in Vienna in 1791; Mozart himself conducted the orchestra that night. In the more than 200 years since, the show […]
Hearing in Color, a Fractured Atlas organization in collaboration with WFMT 98.7 FM, presented the chamber opera Undying Love on November 12, at the warm, welcoming Kehrein Center for the […]
The two works that began Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2021-22 season could hardly contrast more. The first opening, on September 17, was Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth: Dark, brutal, gory, filled with lust for power, rage […]
Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its 2021-22 comeback season September 17 with Giuseppe Verdi’s 1847 interpretation of William Shakespeare’s 1606 play Macbeth. There have been few works of literature more […]
A young student approaches Northwestern University’s arts center at the beginning of Orfeo Remote, a thoroughly modernized, virtual interpretation of the historic Claudio Monteverdi opera L’Orfeo. Finding the doors locked […]
There are performances that play exactly to your sensibilities and provide you with thorough delight. There are others that may challenge your tastes but leave you thinking, “Well, that was […]
The Lyric Opera of Chicago first presented Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in 1955 (it made its world premiere in 1904); the version on stage there now (through March 8) is a revival […]
“Mother, what happened here?” The innocent question that opens The Light in the Piazza has a loaded answer. Clara Johnson (Solea Pfeiffer) and her mother Margaret (Renée Fleming) step into […]