Author Archives: Paul Kuritz

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA’S RIGOLETTO: MISDIRECTED BEAUTY

Two years after the 1851 premiere of Rigoletto at La Fenice in Venice, Verdi summarized his opera in words which seem to pertain to almost every production of the opera: As far as dramatic effectiveness is concerned, it seems to me that the best material I have yet put to music (I’m not speaking of […]

January 31, 2022 – 12:48 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, Current Events, Dance, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on THE METROPOLITAN OPERA’S RIGOLETTO: MISDIRECTED BEAUTY

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY IN CHICAGO: THE GREAT WIN AN OPERA HOUSE LOTTERY!

“As 21 January 1867 dawned, exciting and auspicious events were occurring all across the operatic world. In faraway Paris, Giuseppe Verdi was put­ting the finishing touches on his new opera, Don Carlos, in preparation for its eagerly awaited l’Opera premiere for the Paris Exposition. Jules Massenet was ardently overseeing the final rehearsals for his own […]

January 21, 2022 – 6:29 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, Books, from Paul, History, Music, Opera | Comments Off on ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY IN CHICAGO: THE GREAT WIN AN OPERA HOUSE LOTTERY!

LYRIC OPERA’S MAGIC FLUTE: SAD AND SOULLESS

Chicago’s first Magic Flute played on Tuesday evening, January 17, 1865. Carl Anschutz (1813-1870) conducted. In January 1864 Leonard Grover (1833-1926) brought to Chicago the first real German opera troupe for fifteen performances at the recently remodeled  McVicker’s Theater at Madison and Dearborn,  among them Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The city’s German population was very […]

November 18, 2021 – 3:25 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on LYRIC OPERA’S MAGIC FLUTE: SAD AND SOULLESS

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”, […]

November 5, 2021 – 7:19 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, Current Events, from Paul, Music, Poetry, Quotations, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on BOB DYLAN CONCERT: A “GHOSTLY APPEARANCE”

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT: NON-STOP JOY

In the early 1970s countless undergraduate and graduate stage directing students had the “happy idea” of setting Shakespeare’s As You Like It in a then new and en vogue  Back-to-Nature commune,  populated mostly by trust fund baby revolutionaries fleeing Richard Nixon’s America. Arden was a Vermont ashram, the center of the American counterculture, home to […]

October 31, 2021 – 6:47 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT: NON-STOP JOY