By June Sawyers “Call me Ishmael.” Even if you have never read the novel, you know the sentence, one of the most famous opening lines in American literature. But Jake Heggie, the […]
Review: Lost in the Heart of the Sea—Moby-Dick, the Opera
Fleming Fêted at the Lyric Opera; to Star in A Light in the Piazza in December
Chicago’s Lyric Opera fêted their fabulous creative consultant Renée Fleming last week. She debuted on that stage on October 9, 1993, and has since performed in 10 roles. She’s presided over partnerships […]
Review: Lyric’s La Traviata Offers Familiarity Through First-Rate Performances
As operas go, La Traviata is perhaps among the best known. Giuseppe Verdi’s adaptation (with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave) of a play that itself was based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas […]
Review: Lyric’s Cendrillon Is a Fairy Tale That Dazzles and Delights
Whether it’s Rogers & Hammerstein, Disney, the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault, the story of Cinderella, her fairy godmother, the glass slippers and happily ever after is, even in these modern times, […]
Review: Lyric Opera Launches a Strong 64th Season with Moving, Minimalist La Bohème
There are certain experiences, certain accomplishments that, understandably, pop up on most people’s Bucket Lists, those to-do lists of what we’d all like to check off before we leave this life. Travel […]
God Is in the Details of Lyric Opera’s Jesus Christ Superstar
I don’t like musicals. I’m an atheist. I love Jesus Christ Superstar. I was a budding theater nerd when my cool uncle Tommy turned me on to The Who’s Tommy in 1969. […]
Review: Sensory Overload Detracts from Lyric’s New Faust
If Lin-Manuel Miranda reinvented the modern American musical with Hamilton in 2015, one could say John Frame, production designer on the world premiere of Faust now at Lyric Opera of Chicago, is […]
Lyric’s Cosi fan tutte Makes Mozart, Opera Fun Again
When I think of a fun night at the theater, I don’t typically think of the opera. Blame it on my generation, my relative poverty, my lack of sophistication. What can I […]
Lyric Opera’s Turandot is a Lavish, Impressive Production of Puccini’s Final Opera
At the pre-show lecture in advance of Monday’s performance of Turandot at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, WFMT’s Carl Grapentine observed that, in the end, Puccini’s final opera—about a cold, unloving princess and […]
Dance Down the Highway to Hell in Lyric’s Orphée et Eurydice
Opening night of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2017/18 season kicked off with Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (Paris version), and included a first-time collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet. As my […]
Moreau Meets Groundhog Day Week in The Invention of Morel
The Police drummer Stewart Copeland has turned the 1940 Argentine novel into his fifth opera that’s a mix of island dwellers like Dr. Moreau and Gilligan’s Professor, while extending Bill Murray’s Groundhog […]
Lyric’s The Magic Flute A Spellbinding Homegrown Fairytale
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s high-concept reimagination of Mozart’s classic opera, The Magic Flute couples the fantasy of its source material with the imaginative resourcefulness of several children in their backyard. From grandiose […]
