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On October 9 I attended the Canadian Opera Company’s new production of Verdi’s Aida. Indeed, it was a very new production, directed by Tim Albery, with sets and costumes by Hildegard Bechtler and Jon Morrell, respectively. In their hands, Verdi’s ancient Egypt was transplanted to the later 20th century. Was it the 1960s? The 1980s? It was hard to tell. Call it Regietheater or call it Eurotrash – the "updating" of operas has been around for a while now, and it looks like the fashion will

Eye of newt and brilliant singing, wing of bat and stunning sets. Stir in fetching witches, add some oddly flavored staging and you have the steamy cauldron that is Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In baritone Thomas Hampson as Macbeth and soprano Nadja Michael as his grasping, murderous wife, the Lyric’s season opener boasts two dramatic voices that could well make Verdi’s concise opera fly on a bare stage. But far from barren, designer James Noone’s sweeping, steely sets embrace

Every day I pass through Toronto’s Bathurst Street Subway Station, on the way to work. And sometimes, on days when I’m not running late, I pause to listen to the classical music that the Toronto Transit Commission pipes into the station. But as much as I enjoy being gently eased into my working day with a Mozart symphony or a Vivaldi concerto, I’m well aware that the TTC isn’t really trying to gratify my particular musical tastes. There are other motives at work here... This essay continues on the very cool

Music director may be the conventional name for an orchestra’s chief conductor, but artistic director more accurately defines the best of them. As much as anything, it is Riccardo Muti’s creative and purposeful programming that’s bringing such excitement and promise to his new directorship of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The Sept. 30 concert at Orchestra Hall, which matched symphonies by Haydn and Mozart, provided a telling case in point. By choosing less familiar works, both early and late, from each composer, Muti

  What is Nicolas Joel up to? Opéra de Paris's 2010-11 season features some intriguing new productions, repertoire rareties, and new works, but Bastille's first two shows are both Willy Decker revivals from the last century. Twice in just over a week I saw sparse unit sets decorated with a few sticks of furniture, with sweeping 19th century score and narrative shoehorned into a narrow physical and psychological framework. Decker's interiorizing approach restores something of Pushkin's original epistolary

The Goodman Theatre’s staging of Leonard Bernstein’s ever-problematic musical “Candide,” in a new adaptation by Mary Zimmerman, brings to mind Touchstone’s conflicted assessment of his new life in the country compared with his erstwhile surroundings at court. In respect that Zimmerman’s rethinking of “Candide” lends new coherence to an ill-formed play, it pleaseth me well; in respect that it still suffers from longueurs and an impression of one joke repeated ad nauseum, ’tis tedious.

Passion drives everyone a bit mad in this Bizet opera. The Pearl Fishers suffers from a weak storyline (even for opera, it’s lame). But who cares? This Opera Cleveland and GroundWorks Dance Theatre production of “The Pearl Fishers” delights in Bizet’s melodious score and the opportunities it offers for great dance numbers. Hints of Bizet’s masterwork, Carmen (which came a dozen years after), lurk throughout but Kay Walker-Castaldo, stage director; Dean Williamson, music director, and David

The confluence of conductor Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra looks like the making of a heavenly stream. In Muti's official debut Sept. 23 as the CSO’s 10th music director, conductor and orchestra delivered a performance of Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique” of consummate finesse while fashioning the work’s tormented rhetoric into exquisite poetry. The “Symphonie” is fantastique in the sense of phantasmagorical, a welling of disturbed images in the mind of a

Time was when "classical" music flowed ever fresh from the inspiration of the moment. It was called improvisation, and it was considered fundamental to the art of composer-performers like Mozart and Beethoven. That was before the classical tradition became standardized, formalized, cast in stone. I was recently reminded of that long-ago creative world, as I was covering the prodigious Detroit International Jazz Festival. Performances by great musicians like trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, bassist

It was a banner night for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the spectacular public welcoming of conductor Riccardo Muti as its 10th music director. But more than that, at a time when American orchestras are reeling from the effects of an economic slump, it was a profoundly encouraging sign of the health and prospects of classical music. The free concert Sunday evening at Chicago’s handsome Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park drew not just a big crowd, it drew a sea of humanity – upward of 25,000 people, according to

Over two weeks, and a mile or so from the Surfing Museum in Santa Cruz, California, Marin Alsop brought a dozen living composers and their music to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Famous composers—people like John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Philip Glass, and Mark Anthony Turnage. A bevy of critics were in attendance to opine on one or more of the several concerts, including yours truly.  The result was one of the better of the 19 series I’ve been attending, starting with the first one Alsop directed in 1992.

  I walk into a musical event filled with hope and anticipation: for a performance that catches fire, the discovery of a wonderful new artist, a veteran's finest hour, a peak experience. Reality rarely lives up to that exalted fantasy, but my assumption is that the artists will make their best effort to honor the music and share it with the audience. So, toi toi toi: I want them to have a good night, for the listener's sake and for their own. Thus I am not a "gotcha" critic, and I can forgive many faults in a

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has made its summer home at the Ravinia Festival outside of Chicago for 74 seasons. This season's residency began quietly in the pavilion on Monday June 28 with an all-Chopin program, conducted by its music director since 2005 James Conlon, who is also music director of the Los Angeles Opera. Actually it was so quiet as to be puzzling. Monday is certainly not a big concert night. Even more curious was the structure of the evening, which began with pianist Garrick Ohlsson playing a solo, followed by

Joffrey Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra @ Blossom 9/4 Let there be [more] light. When Joffrey Ballet artistic director Ashley C. Wheater spoke to the press earlier this summer I asked him if the company would make any set changes based on experience gained after last year’s successful Blossom appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra. The first thing he mentioned was the lighting--that they hadn’t realized how much natural ambient light detracted from the dancers. They certainly fixed that. Walking into the Pavilion this

I've been a fan of the Joffrey Ballet since I first saw them perform in Kansas City in the early 70s -- long before the company's transplantation first to Los Angeles, then to Chicago, and the demise of its co-directors Robert Joffrey (1988) and Gerald Arpino (2008). The company distinguished itself then by its devotion to the disciplines of classical ballet interestingly fused with some of the best elements of modern dance, in repertory which was always fresh and exciting. Thus I'm happy to report that under its current artistic

Canadian Brass turns 40 this year – middle age for a human being, but venerable for a touring ensemble. Tubist Chuck Daellenbach founded the group in 1970 with trumpeter Stuart Laughton and trombonist Eugene Watts. One of the first groups to actively develop the practice of audience engagement during concerts, Canadian Brass is still going strong.   Trumpeter Brandon Ridenour was the youngest player in the group’s history when he joined in 2006 at the age of 20. We reached both

On Saturday, July 17, British-born conductor Nicholas McGegan will take the Cleveland Orchestra back to the 18th century when he conducts the ensemble in Handel’s ‘Concerto Grosso No. 1’ and the Suite from ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, and collaborates with violinist Peter Otto in Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’. Dubbed ‘The Energizer Bunny’ by the Plain Dealer, McGegan was indeed full of energy, even at 9:30 in the morning, when we reached him by phone in

Over two weeks, and a mile or so from the Surfing Museum in Santa Cruz, California, Marin Alsop brought a dozen living composers and their music to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Famous composers—people like John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Philip Glass, and Mark Anthony Turnage. A bevy of critics were in attendance to opine on one or more of the several concerts, including yours truly.  The result was one of the better of the 19 series I’ve been attending, starting with the first one Alsop directed in 1992.

  I’ve just got to say that if I’d been wearing socks they would have been knocked off by the concert offered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble last month.An overflow [crossover] crowd filled the Blossom Music Center pavilion and the lawn that Saturday night to listen to new works as well as traditional Persian and Chinese music.The ensemble’s interactions with each other and with the audience kept alive a keen awareness of the sense of drama inherent in music’s power to summon and

            Pianist Cecile Licad, whose romantic temperament is well documented and whose interest in chamber music is far reaching, takes both proclivities to a new place in her latest venture. She’s about to embark on a five-city tour with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and an all-star band – to play live accompaniment for a new silent movie, "Louis," on the early life of jazz icon Louis Armstrong.