Category Archives: Movies

Chicago Opera and CITIZEN KANE

“Samuel Insull built the Civic Opera Building for his mistress, an opera singer.” “Samuel Insull built the Civic Opera Building for his mistress, Mary Garden, an opera singer.” These two similar tales are told daily by Chicago River tour guides. And these two tales are totally false. The only truth in the tales is that […]

August 27, 2016 – 2:30 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, from Paul, History, Media, Men and Women, Movies, Music, Newspapers, Opera, Quotations, Theater, Uncategorized, Videos | Comments Off on Chicago Opera and CITIZEN KANE

The Raven Theatre’s A LOSS OF ROSES: The Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

The story of Chicago’s role in fostering the career of Tennessee Williams is well known. But Chicago’s role in the career of America’s other great playwright, William Inge, is not as familiar. In 1944 the young drama instructor, William Inge, met the would-be playwright Tennessee Williams in St. Louis where both men lived. Williams invited […]

February 22, 2016 – 6:01 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, History, Men and Women, Movies, Music, Quotations, Theater, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Raven Theatre’s A LOSS OF ROSES: The Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

Lyric Opera’s Bel Canto: The Music, The Music, The Music

“It has a tremendous variety of expression, of musical ideas. It has a virtuoso quality to it. It has very driven and barbaric moments about it, very lyrical moments, very sensual moments. It has chamber music in the midst of all this bombastic stuff. It’s incredibly exciting.” The words of Leonard Bernstein’s former pupil Yakov […]

January 13, 2016 – 11:04 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Movies, Music, Opera, Politics, Quotations, Theater, World Affairs | Comments Off on Lyric Opera’s Bel Canto: The Music, The Music, The Music

Kenneth Branaugh and Rob Ashford’s THE WINTER’S TALE arrives

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, the first offering of Kenneth Branaugh’s Plays at the Garrick, arrived on American movie screens last evening. After an interminable unedited film of the Garrick audience doing nothing but sitting, the production began, the American audience not as well-disposed as it had been forty minutes earlier when the unedited […]

December 1, 2015 – 8:42 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, History, Mini-Review, Movies, Theater, Videos | Comments Off on Kenneth Branaugh and Rob Ashford’s THE WINTER’S TALE arrives

SFO’s SHOWBOAT: New Excellence in Live Performance Recording

The recently released two disc DVD of the San Francisco Opera’s 2014 production of Hammerstein and Kern’s pioneer opera Showboat is a treat for many reasons. First, rarely has the art of live performance recording been practiced to such great effect than by screen director Frank Zamacona and his EuroArts team. The shots are beautifully […]

July 21, 2015 – 1:55 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, Media, Movies, Opera, Television, Theater, Videos | Comments Off on SFO’s SHOWBOAT: New Excellence in Live Performance Recording