Performing Arts Review Archives

A Black man with a beard, wearing a dark frock coat, trousers, and boots, kneels on the left. On the right, a redheaded white woman in along silvery flowered gown kneels next to him and clutches at his arm. His eyes are closed. She has a pleading look upon her face.

When melodrama meets breaking news

by Deanna Isaacs September 12, 2022September 13, 2022

Thanks to CNN, this weekend I went right from Lyric Opera’s season-opening production of Ernani—featuring Charles V of Spain—to the pomp and circumstance surrounding the launch of Charles III of […]

A group of performers in American colonial-era clothing stands in a line in front of a bridge, where two men stand.

Arts & Culture

In search of freedom

by Deanna Isaacs April 25, 2022April 25, 2022

This commission by Chicago Opera Theater brings to town a new opera by the prolific and celebrated Belize-born British composer, singer, pianist, and performer Errollyn Wallen, with librettist Deborah Brevoort. […]

Three women in ragged dresses, their heads covered with scarves, stand in a row, holding pieces of paper with musical notes on them.

Performing Arts Review

Holocaust, the opera

by Deanna Isaacs March 31, 2022March 31, 2022

It was a little disturbing that in the final moments of Chicago Fringe Opera’s stirring production of the Holocaust opera Two Remain (Out of Darkness), what should pop into my […]

Front of a riverboat onstage, surrounded by blue/purple light and projections of butterflies. A woman in a light long dress stands on the upper deck of the boat.

Arts & Culture

Riverboat romance

by Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel November 18, 2021November 18, 2021

With the first Chicago snow of the season also came the opening of Florencia en el Amazonas, and the late Daniel Catán’s opera kept the audience warm with hot romance […]

A woman on the left in black dress with white trim and a man in brown suit and hat, both wearing vaudeville-style makeup, surrounded by projections of yellow and blue flowers

Arts & Culture

What a concept!

by Deanna Isaacs November 5, 2021November 5, 2021

Barrie Kosky’s magic take on Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which has been circling the globe for nearly a decade and seen by 700,000 people, landed on the Lyric Opera Stage […]

Performing Arts Review

Good medicine

by Deanna Isaacs September 27, 2021September 27, 2021

This take on Gaetano Donizetti’s 1832 comic opera, L’elisir d’amore, is a two-act antidote for our COVID-plagued reality. Cleverly directed by Daniel Slater and beautifully designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, […]

Performing Arts Review

Risking all for opera

by Deanna Isaacs September 20, 2021September 20, 2021

A Verdi classic, a twist on Bizet, and a doubleheader of new work kick off the opera season in Chicago.

Performing Arts Review

Chicago-style magic is ready for its close-up again

by Kerry Reid August 19, 2021August 23, 2021

Magical thinking is both bane and balm. Without a little bit of belief in the possibility of miraculous transformation, I’d probably never get out of bed (especially lately). Yet amid […]