Original Director Richard Jones and revival director Benjamin Davis have created a staging that veers wildly between fascinating and fatally flawed.
By Henson Keys
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Winter weather has taken a toll on the cast of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s revival of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
By Henson Keys
Whether Lyric Opera of Chicago is an appropriate venue for such an intimate, gentle show as The Light in the Piazza is a subject of much critical debate.
By Henson Keys
Ryan McKinny’s Don is subtler, slyer, smoother, with a sharp wit and sense of dark humor that gives added dimension to the role.
By Henson Keys
It was a gloomy, chilly, rainy day in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, a perfect reflection of the sad and gloomy fates of the title characters in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s presentation of The Three Queens.
By Henson Keys
Lyric Opera of Chicago’as Don Giovanni lands smack dab in the middle of our current debate about wanted or unwanted sexual advances and outright sexual abuse.
By Henson Keys
Sunday’s matinee at Lyric Opera of Chicago was my first experience of Heggie and McNally’s 2000 opera Dead Man Walking. It certainly won’t be my last.
By Henson Keys
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Mozart and Friends
little OPERA theatre of ny’s concert spotlights several arias from their postponed production of Mozart’s The Shepherd King, with additional music by Rameau, Handel, and Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Thursday July 9 at 7:30 p.m., streamed live from St John’s in the Village. Read more…
Luisa Miller snowballs toward disaster and death.
By Henson Keys
It’s an old chestnut of a joke that applies even more to opera than to the theatre: A veteran actor is on his deathbed.
By Henson Keys
In our current political climate with issues of immigration, tribalism, and white nationalists, the 1957 musical West Side Story has a distinctly contemporary feel.
By Henson Keys
Sunday’s “Rising Stars in Concert”, featuring the Ryan Opera Center ensemble and members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra, was a stirring and entertainingly musical afternoon.
By Henson Keys
Saturday night, Lyric Opera of Chicago gave us a wonderful evening of vocalism in honoring Renée Fleming’s 25th anniversary at Lyric.
By Henson Keys
It’s been a rough winter in Chicago, and an especially rough one for lead singers at Lyric Opera of Chicago
By Henson Keys
Those of us who were hoping for “a star is born” performance were, alas, disappointed.
By Henson Keys
Of course, Stemme had the character’s frenzied fury at her father’s murderers in hand, but she had far more nuance—at times this Elektra was seductive, sympathetic, loving, even humorous in her bitterness.
By Henson Keys
Sondra Radvanovsky in a “Three Queens” concert and The Queen of Spades, plus three cycles of the Ring (senza Sondra) highlight Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2019-2020 season.
By La Cieca
San Francisco Opera continues its competition with Lyric Opera of Chicago for the title of “World’s Dullest Opera Company.”
By La Cieca
“We’ve realized that, actually, the status quo is not an option if we want to survive, let alone thrive.”
By La Cieca
Jules Massenet’s version of the Cinderella fairy tale, Cendrillon, seems to be back in vogue after many years of obscurity.
By Henson Keys
If sheer clarion vocalism is what draws you to the opera, then hie thee to Lyric Opera of Chicago’s rousing revival Of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, the oddly plotted but musically sublime opera that opened last night in the David McVicar production, originally seen in 2006.
By Henson Keys
Director David Pountney and his splendid designers have brought Lyric Opera of Chicago a visually spectacular Siegfried full of daring ideas.
By Henson Keys
“Renée Fleming herself will sing, of course…”
By La Cieca
Those readers who know my musical tastes will not be shocked to find that I have a somewhat conflicted view of Mozart’s operatic works.
By Henson Keys
