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 […]

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 […]

This isn’t a “best theater of the year” list. As we’ve noted about past lists, we don’t see everything. Most of our writers are freelancers, all with other gigs, and […]

At a typical (however one defines that) performance at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the accompanying program includes in each cast and crew bio the professional’s previous Lyric credits. The asterisks […]

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 […]

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 […]

I’ve attended more opera in the last year than I have in all my years of attending theater (and that’s a lot of years!). I’ve been able to see several […]

Women’s ‘March to the Polls’ Draws Thousands Thousands gathered in Grant Park over the weekend for the “Women’s March to the Polls,” a rally and voting drive put together by […]

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 […]