Guiseppe Verdi’s Aida is perhaps one of his best-known operas and of all Italian operas. It has the treachery, aching love, and tragedy that befalls the great heroines of this […]
Champion is the story of welterweight boxer Emile Griffith’s career in boxing with a life-defining fatal bout in 1962 against Benny “Kid” Paret. I believe that an opera in jazz […]
I have four copies of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in my library and while I have a weird fondness for dark morality tales, I also enjoy the story of the stepchild […]
The Lyric Opera has produced some of the finest interpretations of Richard Wagner in the world of opera and the season opener of The Flying Dutchman may be my favorite. […]
Choreography by Jerome Robbins, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and music by Leonard Bernstein are the calling cards of West Side Story. This is an energetic and passionate contemporary retelling directed […]
Georges Bizet produced some of opera’s most memorable music for Carmen, his 1875 composition, set in Spain and sung in French, about a wildly free-spirited woman whose fickle and domineering […]
Barbershops and beauty salons are important cultural hubs for communities of color. “In my day, a barber was more than just somebody who sit around in a FUBU shirt with […]
What do you get when you mix Englebert Humperdinck, a visual homage to German expressionism, Weimar decadence, and gorgeous singing? The answer is Hansel and Gretel at the Lyric Opera. […]
Last year, the Lyric Opera presented a dazzling production of The Magic Flute originally conceived for Berlin’s Komische Oper by Australian director Barrie Kosky. Now, the Lyric is at it […]
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 […]