10 Films to Catch at the Chicago International Film Festival
The 53rd edition of the Chicago International Film Festival kicks off on Thursday and runs through October 26th. I can recall the early days when the festival was a scrappier version of its current...
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“Rigoletto” Is The Real Deal
Let me get right to the point. “Rigoletto”, now at Lyric Opera, is a vocally ravishing, near-perfect production that you should rush to see before its run ends on November 3rd. It is good to see Lyric...
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A Diva’s Newest Challenge
Patricia Racette is an internationally-renowned opera singer who has performed at major houses around the world: The Met in New York, Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid and La Scala in Milan....
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Falling Under Wagner’s Spell
Three score and ten years. It’s taken that long for me to have seen two segments of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. I resisted for so long yet fell completely under the composer’s spell this week! I...
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My Favorite Christmas Music
This year, in countless coffee shops, every McDonald’s and department store, the din of treachly tunes like “All I Want for Christmas is You” and “Santa Baby” serenades us. For me, even such classics...
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200 Years of Master Drawings
For more than two centuries, from the early 19th through the 20th century postwar era, anyone calling themselves an “Artist” had to be versed in drawing and printmaking. When the capital of the modern...
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A Boy’s Pursuit of Love & Identity
The bulletin board outside a Hyde Park church featured this challenging quote by renowned author, Elie Wiesel: “Is Silence the Answer? It Never Was.” That truth took me back to the play I had seen a...
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History the Way it Was or Was It?
Rob Riley (Ronald Reagan) and William Dick (Mikhail Gorbachev) Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time in 1985. Their Geneva Summit was a high-stakes meeting–two leaders of the only...
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Bees Do It, Fleas Do It, Let’s Fall in Love
Lyric Opera has come to the rescue just in time! In these early days of 2018, when the world has gone mad with multiple school shootings, Syria and Russian spy meddling, Lyric has prescribed a welcome...
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American-born Conductor On the Rise
James Gaffigan, who is currently leading a thrilling production of Mozart’s comic “Cosi Fan Tutte” at Lyric Opera, is one of the fastest-rising conductors on the music scene. Yet, he claims to be in no...
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Lyric’s Truly Unlimited Opera
Make haste! You have only until this Sunday (March 25) to catch the exciting new opera, “Fellow Travelers”, that Lyric Opera is presenting at the Atheneum Theatre. It is part of its “Lyric Unlimited”...
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Tragic Tale Between Two Cultures
Silk Road Rising is a theatre company founded in 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 the year before. Over the past 16 years, it has produced around 30 plays with two goals in...
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A Born-Again Opera Company
As I was watching Chicago Opera Theater’s fascinating production of “Elizabeth Cree” in February, I almost had to rub my eyes and make sure I wasn’t dreaming. This co-production with Opera Philadelphia...
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Midsummer Dance Madness
I have now seen three “Midsummer Night’s Dream” productions–Shakespeare’s, Peter Brooks’ magical updating and now Alexander Ekman‘s Swedish version in dance. All are supremely inventive tellings of...
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The ATF Goes Fishing
For its newest play, Timeline Theatre tells a tale literally ripped from yesterday’s headlines. The setting for “To Catch a Fish” is Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, the time is Spring, 2013. Terry...
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FRONT: Cleveland’s Art Spectacle
You have heard of the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale. Well now, make way for the Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, otherwise known as FRONT International. It opens officially today...
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