Category Archives: Poetry

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY: A HYMN TO THE HUMAN SOUL

Conor McPherson, the world’s greatest English-language playwright asked Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan  if he would be interested in using his songs in a theater piece. The result is the magnificent folk-opera Girl from the North Country, which we saw in October 0f 2018 at New York’s Public Theatre. Since then, director McPherson has been […]

The Met’s NABUCCO: Verdi’s Beautiful Prayer for those in Exile

On February 23 of last year, Naomi Wolf,  author, feminist and former advisor to Bill Clinton and Al Gore published a remarkable essay, “Have the Ancient Gods returned?” In it she quotes Jonathan Cahn’s book The Return of The Gods[i]           “Having accurately traced the lineage of pagan worship and pagan forces, Cahn makes the […]

FINE ARTS BUILDING IN AMERICAN THEATRE HISTORY

The City of Chicago proclaimed Friday, October 13, as “Fine Arts Building Day” in recognition of its 125th anniversary year. The Fine Arts Building also played a significant role in the history of the American theater by hosting the landmark Chicago Little Theatre. When the Fine Arts Building opened in 1885 as a Studebaker automobile […]

Handel’s JEPHTHA: Being Right in One’s Own Eyes: The Music of the Baroque’s Electrifying Performance

The most commonly used word to describe Georg Friedrich Handel’s 1752 oratorio Jephtha is “dark”. And the word has nothing to do with the fact that the composer was going blind as he was composing. Jephtha, Handel’s last oratorio, is his most troubling masterpiece. The work contemplates the often inscrutable role of the divine in […]

BOB DYLAN CONCERT: A “GHOSTLY APPEARANCE”

Since  it opened its doors in 1889 Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre has heard the world’s  great voices, in words, in music, and in both. On Wednesday, the eighty year old  Nobel Prize-winning Bob Dylan offered an inspired  concert which placed him in that pantheon of voices. Dylan opened the concert with 1971’s “Watching the River Flow”, […]