Kristin Walters

RIGO-LENTO After a season chock full of successes, Lyric’s momentum slows with a dull production of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Not even Evan Rogister’s expert conducting nor the orchestra’s triumphant execution  of Verdi’s score could buoy opening night’s dragging performances. The show opens with a single spotlight illuminating a violent sexual encounter between the Duke of Mantua (a…

PUPPET SHOW Ethan Lipton’s Luther received rave reviews when it premiered in New York last June, yet it enjoyed only a brief run. So it makes sense that Steep Theater would want to try out the dark satire on Chicago and see if it sticks. Unfortunately due to an unfocused script and misguided direction, it…

RELIABLE CROWD-PLEASER ONCE AGAIN, WELL, PLEASES THE CROWD Puccini’s La Bohème has succeeded numerous times at Lyric Opera since its first performance in 1954, but their newest production is fresh and satisfying. First of all, it’s hard to go wrong (in general) with La Bohème, a relatively light tragedy buoyed with easy-to-love characters, provocative music…

FIFTY SHADES PUREED The erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey has made millions, maybe billions, of dollars and counting, having set the record as the fastest-selling paperback of all time, surpassing the paperback sales of the Harry Potter series. Author E.L. James wrote fan-fiction as a hobby until her Twilight-inspired work turned into the unbelievably…

D’ARCANGELO DONS A NEW LOOK After presenting a successful string of tragic operas this season, Lyric Opera flexes its comedic muscles with a charming production of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera buffa Don Pasquale. Although this Bel Canto Era opera has been part of Lyric’s repertoire for almost 50 years, this is the first time they have…

STAGNANT YET SATIATING Giuseppe Verdi wrote Simon Boccanegra in 1857, but it is the revised 1881 version which the  Lyric Opera is presenting in a stiff yet satisfying production.   After searching for his lost daughter (reappearing later as Amelia), Simon Boccanegra (Thomas Hampson) returns to Genoa to find the corpse of his lover and her vengeful…

OPERA WITH A TASTE FOR BLOOD The word “opera” normally elicits memories of sound’”an orchestra roiling, an aria peaking’”but in an effort to innovate the public’s preconceived notions of the art form, Lyric presents both a musically entrancing and visually stunning production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra. Images of blood, destruction — and androgyny — will…

WRONG IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE, OR A TREK THROUGH PEDANTRY Middle-aged misogynist, pedant, and poet Henry Dennett has a chip on his shoulder and a worm in his gut’”literally, a gigantic tapeworm’”but in David Hirson’s astoundingly overwritten play Wrong Mountain, it’s also an overly symbolic worm whose name in Latin means “contempt for one’s…