Category Archives: Politics

CITY LIT OFFERS BEAUTIFUL, HEARTBREAKING PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD

In 1904 the Great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw used a character in his new play John Bull’s Other Island to comment on his fellow Irishmen’s character: Oh, the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! [Savagely] No debauchery that ever coarsened and brutalized an Englishman can take the […]

July 18, 2022 – 11:02 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Newspapers, Politics, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on CITY LIT OFFERS BEAUTIFUL, HEARTBREAKING PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD

EUN SUN KIM IGNITES LYRIC’S FIERY TOSCA

Chicagoans love their Toscas. Puccini’s opera has attracted passionate performers and audiences alike since it first arrived in Chicago. The latest incarnation will certainly join the distinguished  ranks of the best Toscas seen in the city. Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca is based on Victorian Sardou’s wildly popular drama La Tosca, made famous by Sarah Bernhardt’s world […]

March 24, 2022 – 2:23 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Art, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Politics, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on EUN SUN KIM IGNITES LYRIC’S FIERY TOSCA

THE MET’S AGRIPPINA: STELLAR MUSIC, UNFORTUNATE STAGING

Librettist Vincenzo Grimani had a wonderful idea for a comic opera: a neo-classical comedy of manners featuring history’s most monstrous tyrants as the main characters! The comic incongruity would be enormous, as  the murderous, depraved butchers of Rome’s ancient past acted with impeccable decorum and good taste. Imagine seeing Nero and his court in a […]

February 29, 2020 – 5:46 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Politics, Quotations | Comments Off on THE MET’S AGRIPPINA: STELLAR MUSIC, UNFORTUNATE STAGING

THE MET OPERA’S DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES : OPERA’S DIVINE LADDER OF ASCENT

 Sixteen days after John Dexter’s  1977 production of  Dialogues des Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites)    opened at the Metropolitan Opera a detonated tear gas canister in the lobby forced the 4,000 members of the audience to evacuate the building. Suddenly fear was not just a theme in Mr. Poulenc’s great opera about the human struggle with […]

May 12, 2019 – 3:17 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Movies, Music, Opera, Politics, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on THE MET OPERA’S DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES : OPERA’S DIVINE LADDER OF ASCENT

THE MET’S DIE WALKURE: A SUBLIME RETURN TO THE HEART OF THE FIRST RING

With an opera production as overwhelming as Robert Lepage’s Die Walkure at the Metropolitan Opera, adjectives seem unable to capture the majesty and profundity of the experience. “Spectacular”? “Magnificent”? “Sublime”? All of those and more. And in the most difficult of all art forms. Opera has so many variables subject to personal disposition, physical strength, […]

March 31, 2019 – 3:46 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Movies, Music, Opera, Politics, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on THE MET’S DIE WALKURE: A SUBLIME RETURN TO THE HEART OF THE FIRST RING