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The Civic Opera Company gave its last performance on January 30, 1932. Samuel’s financial house of cards also collapsed, wiping out not only himself, but also hundreds of thousands of shareholders. He resigned from his companies, including Commonwealth Edison and Peoples Gas, and sailed for Europe. The Civic Opera Association christened its new auditorium on November 4, 1929, with a performance of—what else—Aida.
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The Civic's main performance space, named for Ardis Krainik, seats 3,563, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, after the Metropolitan Opera House. The COT season closes with “She Who Dared,” a world premiere by composer Jasmine Barnes and librettist Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton about the women behind Browder v. Gayle. The 1956 court case, which was eventually heard by the Supreme Court, legally desegregated the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system.
Review: Joffrey Ballet’s magical ‘Nutcracker’ is now at the Lyric and better than ever
After Bradley, Michael Black’s chorus was the musical star of the show, energizing every scene in which they appeared. Zambello would have us believe that concentrating on “the four individual dramas” comprises some novel approach. No, this composer’s fundamental dramatic tool is juxtaposing the personal and the public, placing them in conflict with each other. Verdi’s characters live in a society, in a time, in a place—update it, or don’t, but pick somewhere and some time.
West Side Story
The Lyric Stage is used to it’s best for Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman’s vision. To be truthful, this piece in no way has any connection to Shakespeare. This is a tribute to the summer solstice and to the centuries old Scandinavian midsummer holiday. The music, by Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, is pop but very edgy. Anna von Hausswolff – a Swedish indie rock star – serves as narrator.
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It’s a puzzling decision because the time change is at odds, for example, with references in the musical to “rumbles,” a term for street fights now long out of date. Instead of imposing some directorial concept or conceit, Ponnelle simply brings the magic of this story alive, placing the action on fanciful sets that look like enlarged, three-dimensional versions of traditional storybook illustrations. The scenery is all black-and-white with the designer’s striking costumes, including the red jackets of the courtiers and the stepsisters’ garish ball gowns, providing plenty of color and visual pop. Its Art Deco interiors harken back to the golden era in which itwas built. Also called Lyric Opera House, the theater located at 20 NorthWacker Drive opened in 1929. Today, it is still the second-largest operaauditorium in North America (only following the Metropolitan Opera House in NewYork City).
Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center
And OperaWire came about as a desire to take in as much of it and allow the passionate fan base access to everything this wondrous art form has to offer on a daily basis. Although Otto had suggested a new theater in his cablegram, the two decided that they’d use the one they had. Not only was the Auditorium beautiful and acoustically perfect, renting it would have the added bonus of preventing Oscar Hammerstein from being able to bring his company to Chicago and compete the way he did in New York. John said he’d raise it, on the condition that there be a seven-member board of directors, three of whom had to be Chicagoans. The core of this “Nutcracker” is not Buffalo Bills and golden statues.
Civic Opera House (Chicago)
Unlike Wagner, he doesn’t pair up isolated maritime lovers who enjoy making love by mellifluously rapping adulterated Schopenhauer to each other. His characters answer to civilizations and their authorities. As Verdi aged, he improved even further at this formal personal/public relation, peaking with “Don Carlo(s),” “Aïda” and “Otello,” executing it in strikingly nuanced ways. This dynamic animates every single Verdi opera, and arguably, even his Requiem—it’s there in the Requiem’s music.
The Joffrey Ballet Reaps an Extraordinary Work of Dance Theater With 'Midsummer Night's Dream': Review - WTTW News
The Joffrey Ballet Reaps an Extraordinary Work of Dance Theater With 'Midsummer Night's Dream': Review.
Posted: Fri, 26 Apr 2024 21:05:53 GMT [source]
Probably because this work is so different and challenging in its way, no other company has mounted it besides the Joffrey and Royal Swedish Ballet, which debuted it in 2015. The Joffrey deserves credit for taking a risk on “Midsummer” six years ago and for showing enough belief in it to bring it back for new round of audiences to discover. While “Midsummer” is arguably not going to become a classic that audiences will want to see again and again, because there are few insights to gain a second time, it is definitely a fresh, absorbing sensorial experience worth seeing once. The Joffrey’s personnel has changed considerably in six years. Would this latest group of 47 dancers attack this work with the same fervor? The answer is an emphatic yes, with the company delivering a performance that is every bit as energetic, exuberant and heady as before.
Season Performances
There is so much to be written about this work but in truth, the only way to experience this sexy, eye-popping, larger than life “dream” is to see it. Even before the curtain rises, a man (Dylan Gutierrez) gets into the bed center stage, pulls up the covers and goes to sleep. As the curtain rises, he begins to have his wildly imaginative dreams. The stage is covered in what appears to be wheat with everyone dancing and throwing the wheat into the air with no care at all. Dancer Victoria Jaiani is the only dancer wearing shoes while everyone else is barefoot.
Cast spent much of the opera standing apart, or looking past each other, but in a scattershot fashion, rather than purposefully as in, say, Robert Wilson’s 1990s “Lohengrin.” And risible choreography torpedoed each scene featuring dance. Excepting the set for the Tomb Scene, nearly every element of the production appeared hastily thrown together. Enjoyment of this performance leaned heavily on the musicmaking. The dancers wrestle and win with Christopher Wheeldon’s sometimes cringey choreography, which particularly plagues the first act pas de deux and Queen of the Fair solo. Jose Pablo Castro Cuevas and Temur Suluashvili are terrific as the nutcracker doll and Rat King in the battle scene. And a charismatic Gutierrez is Mendoza’s ever-supportive partner throughout a complicated pas de deux near the end of the second act.
Additionally, 170 miles of electrical wiring and 38 miles of electrical conduit were installed throughout the Lyric Opera House. A new 500-pound mainstage curtain was installed, made of 580 yards of heavy-weight wool velour and silk fringe to replicate the original 1929 curtain. All the bronze decorative features and railings in the Lyric Opera House were polished to a just-like-new sheen. The painters also hand-stenciled and hand-detailed the exquisite colorful ornamentation that adorns the Lyric Opera House ceilings. And Ada L. Rice Grand Foyer in honor of major benefactors in 1994, features a floor and wainscoting of pink and gray Tennessee marble, and fluted Roman travertine columns and pilasters. The 40-foot-high columns are topped with carved capitals covered in gold leaf.
Ballerina Anne O’Donnell Passero’s graceful movements in a lovely, flowy, golden gown clashed with the rest of the dance. She looked like she’d been kidnapped from “The Nutcracker,” deported to unidentified geography, and forced to perform for a motley assortment of calligraphy enthusiasts. Excepting Passero, every dance element forced the suppression of a guffaw. A Zambello commonplace is sprinkling some rowdy children on the stage; these kids were too old to be interested in the game of tag they played in the midst of Amneris’ handmaidens, cavorting about a misplaced mid-century modern sofa.
A leaner COT season comes as no surprise, given industry trends and recent developments at the company. Last year, COT cut its production of Rameau’s “Platée,” originally slated for March, due to budget constraints. The company’s exclusive partnership with the Chicago College of Performing Arts’s professional opera diploma program, whose students made up its Young Artists Program, also ends this season. To enhance the notion of a summer party, several strings of white lights are draped above the front of the stage, which is bathed in green light, and the pleasant recorded sounds of singing birds greet audiences as they entered the theater. Because drops are entirely removed and the stage is converted into a giant black box for this production, with set pieces and exposed side and ceiling lighting setting the scene, any suitably large space would work. Spread across the entire stage, dancers are reveling in a sea of hay (turns out it’s actually haylike raffia), throwing and waving clumps of the golden strands.
The adjoining Civic Theatre, at the north end of the block-long building, was used to present plays (including the premiere of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie), dance performances, and films; for a considerable time it also served as a television studio. With a 49-member cast and chorus, a 43-member pit orchestra and the massive expanse of the Lyric Opera House stage, it is the kind of large-scale treatment of this musical that only an opera company could muster. And it’s one that makes sense given the show’s sprawling setting on the streets of New York City. Guest conductors Dame Jane Glover (“Leonora”), Eli Chen (“Remedios Varios”), and Michael Ellis Ingram (“She Who Dared”) will lead these productions, with the cast for “Bohème and Beyond” to be announced this summer. Lidiya Yankovskaya, who steps down as music director of the company this season, remains involved with the organization as a mentor for the Vanguard Initiative, which she established in 2018.
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