This weekend will feature a ton of opera across North America, with companies opening a number of productions and others closing them up. First, let’s take a look at the new runs opening this week. Saratoga Opera’s “La Traviata” gets its first performances on Friday and Sunday while Opera Omaha presents its only two “Tosca” showcases of the year those {…}
The Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its season with a fabulous collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet with the French version of “Orphée et Eurydice.” It was a sensational production, although the fact that Gluck’s work doesn’t really feature a great amount of singing perhaps left a void for some hearty Lyric operagoers. Anybody who felt that way certainly had their {…}
Another operatic weekend. Another set of opening performances around North America. The big one on the radar is “Samson et Dalila” at the Dallas Opera, which is set to star Olga Borodina. The opera opens on Friday with another performance set for Sunday. Houston Grand Opera opens its production of “La Traviata” on Saturday. Additionally, the Florentine Opera opens its {…}
As we get deeper and deeper into the fall season, opera lovers are finding themselves with more and more options around the United States. Here is a look at the offerings for this second weekend of the month. First off, let’s kick off with the major openings. On Saturday, Los Angeles Opera opens its production of “Nabucco (the company also {…}
On Dec. 2 through Dec. 4 of 2017, Lyric Opera of Chicago will hold ensemble auditions for their 2018 production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” After winning the 2016 Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival, this production will be redesigned for the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, Illinois. Timothy Sheader will serve as director, Drew McOnie will choreograph it, and {…}
Collaboration is a word not used much in these hyper-polarized political times. For arts organizations facing some hard realities, it is becoming a vital part of their future. It was this cultural backdrop that brought Lyric Opera of Chicago together with the famed Joffrey Ballet for the company’s season opener of Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice,” seen Wednesday in the run’s {…}
Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced that its premiere production of Gluck’s “Orphee et Eurydice” will be broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances series. WNET New York will be in Chicago to film the Oct. 6 and 9 performances at the Lyric Opera House. The broadcast of the recorded performance is scheduled to air in 2018. Produced by famed choreographer John Neumeier and {…}
The fall opera season continues growing with more and more opera companies opening their doors. This will be the first weekend of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017-18 season. While the company has no shows scheduled for Friday, it will have a double header of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” on Saturday during the afternoon and “Die Zauberflöte” in the evening. The former stars {…}
The Lyric Opera of Chicago is joining forces with the Chicago Urban League for “EmpowerYouth! Igniting Creativity through the Arts.” The event is a multidisciplinary afterschool program that is aimed at presenting a fully staged, youth-centric opera based on real-life experiences. “EmpowerYouth!” spans two years beginning this fall and will run through the summer of 2019 and will work with {…}
Lisa DeAngelis, a graduate of University of Illinois’s esteemed voice program and current Alexander Technique practitioner, has been a weekend subscriber at the Lyric Opera of Chicago since she was 20. Driving up from college on the weekends, she and her mother would attend performances up in the second balcony. Little did undergraduate Lisa know, she would be taking over the {…}
Just before the opening night performance of “Orphée et Eurydice,” featuring the Joffrey Ballet with choreography by John Neumeier, the company has announced that come the 2020-21 season, the company’s new home will be the Civic Opera House, marrying Chicago’s two world-renowned companies under one, gold-gilded auditorium. “With The Joffrey’s arrival at the start of the 2020/21 season, the Lyric {…}