Author: Aaron_hunt
It’s All In The Timing
The Elixir of Love – Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera follows a season opener which can speak directly to our times with a bel canto comedy that sends us on a vacation to 1950s Italy. You won’t need your passport, you don’t have to keep abreast of the latest travel restrictions, and as far as clothing goes, a lot of us could raid the trunks in the attic and make use of the colorful and saucy fashions worn during that comparatively breezy time by our parents and grandparents. (Some of us could just reach in the back of our own closets and pull out clothing the style of which we were certain would come back eventually.) Despite a score that bubbles with charm, Donizetti’s, The Elixir of Love suffers from unfair expectation. If we consider it a steppingstone away from the opera buffa toward Donizetti’s more serious work (which paved the way for Verdi), here we find less pants-splitting, more completely human characters, and music that is less pyrotechnical but more honest to the larger purpose.
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Telling Women’s Tales
Petticoats & Sliderules/The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace – Third Eye Ensemble
Third Eye Ensemble comes back to the live stage with two fresh tales of women who, thankfully, refused many of the societal strictures of their times to further both science and humanity. Composer Elizabeth Rudolph’s “conversation” titled Petticoats & Sliderules creates a dialogue based on a 2003 interview in the archives of the Society of Women Engineers and the writings of a 1923 suffragette. Kamala Sankaram’s opera, The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, traces the history of Countess Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, who fights to use her lifeforce and scientific talents for a more sweeping goal than her Victorian times dictate. This double bill was offered to audiences that could offer proof of COVID vaccination, a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of the performance start time, or a negative COVID-19 antigen test taken without 6 hours of the performance start time. The audience was cautioned to remain masked during their entire time in the theatre.
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What Was Old Is New Again
The New Classics (A Virtual Broadway Cabaret) – Lyric Opera
Those of us who have been attending live theatre in Chicago long enough to remember The Civic Theatre, which was attached to the Lyric Opera House of Chicago such that they were both part of the same edifice, still quietly mourn the loss of that famous, intimate space through gritted teeth. We all understand that Lyric Opera needed more room backstage if they were going to retain their status as one of the greatest opera companies in the world, and as the world of stage production allowed for larger and more complex sets, there was simply not enough room to keep all the flying horses and swan boats behind the scenes. So, Lyric bought the smaller house, virtually gutted it, (a bit of the proscenium remains, a stark remembrance of one of Chicago’s most renown playhouses), and now the giant dragon-puppets have somewhere to graze between flights. We “get it.” We “understand.” And we grind our teeth.
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A Season Long Salute to the Knight
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced its 2020/2021, promising blood and guts, love and jealousy, and a season-long celebration of Sir Andrew Davis, who is stepping down from his current position as music director at the season’s end.
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The Trill Of A Donizetti Beheading
The Three Queens – Lyric Opera of Chicago
Patrons of Lyric Opera enjoy world-class productions in a stunning atmosphere. The repertoire is chosen to excite the palate of both the aficionado and the uninitiated. The designers, directors, and conductors are working at the top of their game, and the singers are the best in the world. Interviews with Lyric’s returning stars always have one common denominator: They say that every time they return, they feel like they’re coming home. Our City of Big Shoulders is as cosmopolitan as any other, but we’re also blessed with that midwestern enthusiasm that causes us to spontaneously open our hearts to those who come into our kind of town and raise the level of art and culture.
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Lullaby as Lament
I will fly like a bird – Thompson Street Opera Company
Beginning in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2013, and thriving in Chicago since 2016, the Thompson Street Opera Company continually presents the works of living composers at the highest level of the storefront opera scene. Their season opener this year is no exception. Canadian composer John Plant, with librettist J.A. Wainwright, has created a tone poem of intense feelings of anticipatory joy and poignant sadness around the horror that we see on our television and computer screens every day: Immigrants and the welcoming of refugees gone terribly awry. Skillfully lead by conductor Alexandra Enyart, the orchestra of four strings, piano, and clarinet created not only the textual moments, but the swirls of deep feeling that would carry the stories arc to the next moment where the poetry caught up with the journeys.
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The Harlequin and The Crow: A Clash of Classes
Il Campanello & Gianni Schicchi – New Moon Opera
There
is a bird who by his coat, And by the hoarseness of his note, Might be supposed
a crow. – William Cowper
The Hat and The Cat: Can we demand free will?
The Hat: Arendt Meets Heidegger & The Man Who Woke Up – Thompson Street Opera Company
At the fore of the storefront opera scene in Chicago, Thompson Street Opera Company continues its examination of the fortes and foibles of life in real time through the lens of the works of living composers. Both artistically and academically advantageous, this credo brings a richness to the tapestry of the city’s operatic canvas about which we must brag when waxing politick and gloat after the second cocktail. The double bill Thompson presents this weekend should entice both the converted and the seeking opera enthusiast to sit up close and person in the womb of a black box theatre, immediately engaged in a conversation about the concept (or is it “construct?”) of free will.
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The Strength of Surrender
Thompson Street Opera Company and Pride Films & Plays – When Adonis Calls
An important contributor to Chicago’s deliciously rambunctiously storefront opera scene, Thompson Street Opera, which focuses on the works of living composers, has given Chicago an important production of When Adonis Calls. A tight, yet leisurely, ninety minutes of opera that leaps from the score of composer Clint Borzoni set to the sexy, philosophical meanderings of “The Naked Poet” Gavin Geoffrey Dillard as curated and shaped by director/choreographer/librettist wunderkind John De Los Santos, the piece is scored for two baritones, two male dancers, a string quartet, and percussion, a heady and distinctive bouquet that the creators use to full benefit.
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Love At First Sight
Chicago Opera Theater – Iolanta
Long considered the Second City’s Second Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theater has spent the last year and a half regrouping. Many
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