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Jan 29, 2016 – 3:33 pm |

Review: One well might argue that Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” is a less than perfect play. But the neatly framed picture of hypocrisy at its core is so clear, indeed so ringingly universal in its human embrace, that it resonates in any culture. Witness the Russian-language production (with English supertitles) that officially popped the cork Jan. 27 on Shakespeare 400 Chicago, a yearlong aggregation of events dramatic and otherwise spearheaded by Chicago Shakespeare Theater. ★★★★

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Pianist Daniil Trifonov, 2 gold medals in hand, delivers an Olympian recital at Orchestra Hall

Feb 10, 2014 – 4:33 pm |
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Review: It was an Event, the recital by 22-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov on Sunday afternoon at Orchestra Hall. While the ascent of this phenomenal musician has been meteoric since he won both the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein competitions in 2011, the artist himself is no meteor. Trifonov is more like a midsummer’s morning sun. He’s going to be with us, his zenith yet to be observed, for a long time.

‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ at Porchlight: The joint’s (almost) jumpin’ as singers ease into swing

Feb 9, 2014 – 10:07 am |
The joint is jumpin' with the cast of 'Ain't Misbehaviin'' produced by Porchlight Theatre at Stage 773. (Kelsey Jorissen photo)

Review: On opening night, Porchlight Music Theatre’s go at the Fats Waller revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’” gave the impression of two different shows, one ready and one not quite. The good news is that the sharper, more relaxed and spontaneous effort came in the second half, when perhaps nerves had calmed and the company of five singing, hoofing show folks started to look like they were simply having fun. ★★★

Muti, CSO and singers echo private Schubert with belated first glimpse of Mass in A-flat

Feb 7, 2014 – 5:21 pm |
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Review: It is hard to know which to admire more about Schubert’s Mass No. 5 in A-flat, its consummate lyricism and elegance of construction or its honest spirituality, so open-hearted and direct. In both form and content, this luminous Mass shone in a performance Thursday night by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Muti at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★

From an exotic lark for cellos to MusicNOW, CSO ventures bring heat to frosty cityscape

Feb 7, 2014 – 9:56 am |
Giovanni Sollima and  Yo-Yo Ma perform world premiere of Sollima's 'Antidotum Tarantula XXI' with Chicago Symphony Orchestra Jan. 30, 2014 (Todd Rosenberg)

Review: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its au courant offshoot MusicNOW introduced four contemporary works to Chicago in the space of a single week, including the world premiere of a double cello concerto featuring Yo-Yo Ma and cellist-composer Giovanni Sollima. It’s been cold in Chicago, but it feels like spring with a Riccardo Muti residency in full bloom.

‘Gidion’s Knot’ at Profiles: Answers hit hard when mother seeks cause of child’s suicide

Feb 5, 2014 – 8:53 am |
Amy J. Carle plays the mother of a fifth-grader who has committed suicide in 'Gidion's Knot' by Johnna Adams at Profiles Theatre. (Michael Brosilow)

Review: While it isn’t exactly a monodrama, Johnna Adams’ play “Gidion’s Knot,” about a mother looking for answers after her fifth-grade son kills himself, is a provocatively detailed – and less than flattering — portrait of the mom, with the only other character, the boy’s teacher, serving essentially as interlocutor. And Amy J. Carle’s performance at Profiles Theatre as the self-absorbed, reluctantly self-questioning mother is wrought with painful precision. ★★★

Muti, CSO extend his directorship to 2019-20; next season accents French, Russian music

Feb 3, 2014 – 6:15 pm |
Riccardo Muti has agreed to remain music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through 2019-20 (© Todd Rosenberg)

Report: Riccardo Muti has agreed to a five-year extension of his contract as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through the 2019-20 season, the orchestra announced Monday. Word of the new pact, concluded only Monday morning, came unexpectedly at a press conference to announce the CSO’s season plans for 2014-15, the final year on Muti’s current agreement. The 72-year-old Italian maestro expressed delight at the extension, noting with a wry grin that at its conclusion he will not yet be 80. “The older I get, the more homesick I feel,” he said, “but these musicians and the city of Chicago have made me feel like this is my second home.”

Chicago Theatre Week: Curtain rises on Act 2 with now-eager audience on edge of its seats

Feb 2, 2014 – 3:16 pm |
Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera' presented by Broadway in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. (Matthew Murphy photo)

Preview: When the League of Chicago Theatres decided to stage its first Chicago Theatre Week last year, offering discounted tickets to some 100 productions and other perks in a sort of regional stimulus package, no one knew how it would go – whether the public would bite. What happened was more like a gobble: All 6,000 tickets in the discount pool were snapped up. Now Chicago Theatre Week is back, with the 2014 version of dramas for $15 and $30, and this time the presenters exude optimism.

‘Luna Gale’ at Goodman: Groping for answers when parents are children and milk is meth

Jan 31, 2014 – 10:10 am |
Mary Beth Fisher and Erik Hellman in Goodman Theatre production of 'Luna Gale' by Rebecca Gilman, 2014 (Liz Lauren)

Review: Caroline is a social worker whose job it is to rescue neglected and abused children and find decent homes for them. She goes about her task seriously – one of her former charges gently rebukes her for being “always on topic.” In Rebecca Gilman’s radiant and disturbing new play “Luna Gale,” now in an electric world premiere run at Goodman Theatre, Caroline comes to her melancholy topic with a full heart as well as her own imperfect history. ★★★★★

Condemned to a brutal world, British prisoners act out their humanity in ‘Our Country’s Good’

Jan 28, 2014 – 10:27 pm |
A British sailor (Drew Shad) looks for love with a female prisoner (Mary Franke) in 'Our Country's Good.' (Michael Brosilow)

Review: On the surface, a play about 18th-century British scofflaws creating a play while imprisoned in the distant wilds of Australia might seem, well, remote­ – and too likely to harangue on the morally transformative powers of theater. Suspend your disbelief. “Our Country’s Good,” by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, explores such a premise in crackling drama that’s raw, funny, sober, persuasive and brought off with disarming humanity by the fine ensemble of Shattered Globe Theatre. ★★★

Lyric Opera’s diamond anniversary will spotlight Fleming and Serjan amid stellar cast of singers

Jan 27, 2014 – 3:09 pm |
Tatiana Serjan, soprano

Report: Russian dramatic soprano Tatiana Serjan, who riveted audiences as Riccardo Muti’s Lady Macbeth with the Chicago Symphony in 2013, will return to the Windy City next January at the Lyric Opera of Chicago to sing another knife-wielder, Floria Tosca, the tempestuous diva who tries to outwit a tyrant and foil her lover’s assassination. The Lyric’s 60th anniversary season, announced Jan. 27, also will feature soprano and Lyric creative consultant Renée Fleming in a signature role as Countess Madeleine in Richard Strauss’ final opera, “Capriccio.”

Carl Nielsen’s merry ‘Maskarade’ a rare, tasty treat as Vox 3 Collective stages Danish romp

Jan 25, 2014 – 12:45 am |
Leander (Nicholas Pulikowski) and Leonora (Katy Compton) fall in love at first sight in Carl Nielsen's opera 'Maskarade.' (Brandon Hayes photo)

Review: A delightful surprise awaits opera buffs in an ambitious, full-length staging of Carl Nielsen’s comic opera “Maskarade,” produced by Vox 3 Collective – in the original Danish, no less – at the Vittum Theater on Chicago’s northwest side. ★★★

‘Seven Guitars’ at Court: Director Ron Parson and smart cast tap beauty, pain of Wilson play

Jan 22, 2014 – 1:02 pm |
Floyd (Kelvin Roston, Jr., left) with his drummer Red (Ronald Conner) and harmonica player Canewell (Jerod Haynes). (Michael Brosilow)

Review: A meeting of minds, of sensibilities, between director Ron OJ Parson and playwright August Wilson illuminates a lyrical, joyful and heartbreaking production of Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” at Court Theatre, delivered by an ensemble that’s as sly as it is polished. ★★★★★

Joining revival of Soviet composer Weinberg, Lyric plans Holocaust opera ‘The Passenger’

Jan 20, 2014 – 6:45 pm |
'The Passenger,' by Mieczysław Weinberg, Bregenz production, coming to Lyric Opera Chicago in 2015

Report: Mieczysław Weinberg, perhaps the best Soviet composer you never heard of, was the “other story” at a Lyric Opera of Chicago press conference Jan. 17 when a new Wagner “Ring” Cycle was announced. But Weinberg’s recently revived opera, “The Passenger,” inspired by a Holocaust novel, is making the international rounds and will arrive at the Chicago Lyric in early 2015, as excitement grows for this prolific composer and esteemed friend of Shostakovich.

Role Playing: Brad Armacost switched brothers to do blind, boozy character in ‘The Seafarer’

Jan 19, 2014 – 1:49 am |
Brad Armacost (brave lux)

Interview: Brad Armacost’s earthy, funny and deceptively nuanced portrait of the blind, drunken brother of a lost soul in Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer” was shaped in part, he says, by a blessing and a curse. How Irish that both circumstances should spring from the same source. Armacost’s performance as the devoutly plastered Richard Harkin, in Seanachai Theatre’s brilliant go at “The Seafarer,” is his second pass at the play in recent Chicago seasons.

Showing 2020 vision, Lyric Opera reveals plan for new production of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ Cycle

Jan 17, 2014 – 11:08 am |
Dramatic soprano Christine Goerke will star as Brünnhilde in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's new Ring Cycle (Arielle Doneson)

Report: With headliners Christine Goerke and Eric Owens — two breakthrough American Wagner singers that everyone is seeking – Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Friday that it will embark on a new David Pountney production of the “Ring” Cycle starring Owens as the great god Wotan and Goerke as Brünnhilde, his beloved Valkyrie daughter. The cycle’s four operas are to be unveiled one by one in consecutive seasons beginning in 2016-17, and then in total-immersion festival form, over the course of three weeks in April 2020.

Pianist Eschenbach, baritone Goerne plunge into churning stream of Schubert’s ‘Müllerin’

Jan 17, 2014 – 1:13 am |
Mattias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach, frequent Schubert collaborators  (Wolfgang Lienbacher-Salzburg Festival)

Preview: Baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Christoph Eschenbach have collaborated many times on Schubert’s famous song-cycles – including the tragic “Schöne Müllerin,” which they will perform Jan. 19 at Orchestra Hall. It is an ever-evolving dramatic adventure, says Eschenbach, literally a flowing river which these two actors, baritone and pianist, can never experience twice in the same way.

‘Solstice’ at A Red Orchid: In everyman’s land, house divided crashes down on life, innocence

Jan 16, 2014 – 8:16 am |
Kirsten Fitzgerald and Meighan Gerachis in 'Solstice' at A Red Orchid 2014 (Michael Brosilow)

Review: It is a tragedy as timeless as it is trackless, Zinnie Harris’ “Sostice,” now in its U.S. premiere run at A Red Orchid Theatre. Tellingly, the play is set nowhere in particular, though more or less in the present. But the divided people, the shattered family, the loss of innocence, the appalling cost of violent conflict – these things register with immediacy, with photographic clarity. ★★★

Chicago Symphony on Tour: It’s a red-carpet welcome and rave reviews in Spain’s Canarias

Jan 15, 2014 – 4:51 pm |
Auditorio_de_Tenerife (Wiki Commons)

Report: The sail-like hall on the shore of Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off the African coast, was home for two concerts by the touring Chicago Symphony Orchestra this week. The famous archipelago is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its winter music festival, where music director Riccardo Muti and the CSO were headliners. Now, they’re off to Germany.

Lyric Opera’s ‘Butterfly,’ with spellbinding new cast, beautifully frames a soprano’s fine art

Jan 13, 2014 – 6:46 am |
Stefano Secco, Patricia Racette, Madam Butterfly at Lyric Opera Chicago Jan. 2014 (c. Dan Rest)

Review: Soprano Racette may not look like a fragile 15-year-old Japanese bride, but then few dramatic sopranos who specialize in Italian opera do. Yet Racette is one of those singing actresses who can make you believe just about anything, so sincere is her art and so particular her skills. ★★★★

Chicago Symphony on Tour: Flight snafu resolved, musicians open series in Canary Islands

Jan 10, 2014 – 11:59 am |
The coast of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Stop 1 on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Jan. 2014 tour (© Todd Rosenberg)

Report: Music director Riccardo Muti and the CSO are set to give four performances in the Canary Islands Jan. 10-14. Spain’s idyllic archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa offers architecturally striking concert halls. But the touring musicians were no less subject to travel woes in Chicago’s frigid winter than the rest of us, missing their Madrid connection.

Co-stars of ‘Ghost The Musical’ agree: Magic dwells in unchained illusions, mystic melody

Jan 6, 2014 – 3:46 pm |
Katie Postotnik and Steven Grant Douglas play   lovers distanced by death in a national tour of 'Ghost The Musical' at the Oriental Theatre. (Joan Marcus)

Preview: Onstage romance doesn’t come more charged or emotionally draining than the supernatural stuff of “Ghost The Musical,” says Katie Postotnik, co-star of the nationally touring production that opens Jan. 8 at the Oriental Theatre.

With Sir John Falstaff as an overstuffed delight, CST romps in ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’

Jan 4, 2014 – 4:36 pm |
Mistresses Ford (Heidi Kettenring, left) and Page (Kelli Fox) with the antlered Falstaff (Scott Jaeck) at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. (Liz Lauren)

Review: You never know what pared-down, free-wheeling adaptation of Shakespeare you’re going to get at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But even for CST, its 1940s setting of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” complete with a musical track of period pop tunes, takes fast-and-loose into a new dimension. It’s also a complete delight. ★★★★

Seanachai’s ‘Seafarer’ taps into human comedy with earthy charm and touch of grace

Jan 1, 2014 – 1:35 am |
Everybody's laughing but the troubled Sharky (Dan Waller, right) in this 'Seafarer' alternate feature with Brad Armacost, Ira Amyx and Kevin Theis. (Joe Mazza)

Review: It’s hard to imagine a sweeter greeting for the New Year than Seanachai Theatre’s announcement that it will extend its luminous production of Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer” – originally scheduled to close Jan. 5 – for another four weeks. Lovely, lads, lovely. ★★★★★

Bernard Rands work inspired by Beckett poetry renews composer’s time-honored link to CSO

Dec 20, 2013 – 1:42 pm |
Composer Bernard Rands (BernardRands.com)

Interview: For many, “…where the murmurs die…” will constitute a first Rands encounter. Indeed, this intimate marvel from 1993 is the perfect piece for it, whether one hears it shimmer in the live acoustical space of Orchestra Hall or through a pair of earphones.

Goodman’s ‘Christmas Carol’ brings Yuletide treasure in magical form of Yando’s Scrooge

Dec 12, 2013 – 11:51 pm |
Old Ebenezer Scrooge (Larry Yando, left) observes his younger self (Robert Hope) in a happy moment with Belle (Atra Asdou). (Liz Lauren)

Review: The sixth time is a charm for Larry Yando as that grasping, covetous old sinner Ebenezer Scrooge in the Goodman Theatre production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Or I should say, a charm again — just like Yando’s previous five outings in the part. His irascible but salvageable and very funny misanthrope remains a Scrooge for the young in heart and imagination. ★★★★

CSO president Deborah F. Rutter lands top post at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Arts

Dec 10, 2013 – 4:42 pm |
CSO President Deborah F. Rutter has been named next president of  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C (Todd Rosenberg)

Report: Deborah F. Rutter, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, has been named president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., effective Sept. 1, 2014.

Denève, Chicago Symphony master madness, catch magic of Berlioz’ fantastic dreamscape

Dec 7, 2013 – 4:01 pm |
Conductor Stéphane Denève ( J. Henry Fair)

Review: It was the nightmare you thought you could only wish for, conductor Stéphane Denève’s hallucinogenic, careening, brilliant turn through Berlioz’ “Symphonie fantastique” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Dec. 5 at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★

‘Detroit ’67’ at Northlight: When the dream turns into nightmare, hope’s song keeps its groove

Dec 6, 2013 – 5:50 pm |
'Detroit '67'cast members, from left, Coco Elysses, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Kelvin Roston, Jr., and Tyla Abercrumbie. (Michael Brosilow)

Review: A piece of the American dream. That’s really all the ambitious, optimistic Lank wants for himself and his sister Chelle in Dominique Morisseau’s blistering – and touchingly funny – drama “Detroit ’67,” currently illuminating the stage at Northlight Theatre. ★★★★

‘Clybourne Park’ at Redtwist: In a tight space, prejudice runs riot and hurt explodes in rage

Nov 22, 2013 – 3:15 pm |
Michael Sherwin, Frank Pete and Kelly Owens in 'Clybourne Park' by Bruce Norris Redtwist Theatre 2013 (Kimberly Loughlin)

Review: There’s garden variety theatrical intimacy, and then there’s the astonishing, welcome-to-the-family tumult of Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park” in the living room space that is Redtwist Theatre. ★★★★★

Mahlerite Michael Tilson Thomas brings newly sharpened Ninth to Chicago Symphony podium

Nov 21, 2013 – 2:24 pm |
Conductor-Michael-Tilson-Thomas-will-lead-the-Chicago-Symphony-Orchestra-in-Mahlers-Ninth-Symphony.-Stephan-Cohen.

Interview: Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is what G.B. Shaw might have called the perfect Mahlerite. Not only his baton but his heart as well beats to the subtle impulses of yearning, angst and mockery that permeate and shape Gustav Mahler’s epic creations. Newly refocused on the subject, this Mahler maestro leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in four performances of the Ninth Symphony Nov. 21-24 at Orchestra Hall.