Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Macbeth to Celebrate

“This tragedy is one of the greatest creations of man!” thought Giuseppe Verdi as he began the long and often frustrating process of bringing his operatic version of Shakespeare’s classic to fruition. Tracing a composer’s creative process can help us appreciate his finished work. When composing this particular work, Verdi poured everything he had into […]

A CHICAGO OPERA  CENTENNIAL

With the approach of the 2020-2021 opera season, we commemorate the centenary of the Chicago Opera Association[i]’s world premiere of Sergei Prokofiev[ii]’s For the Love of Three Oranges, December 30, 1921. The opera, ahead of its time, to say the least, had a rocky road to its opening. PROKOFIEV ARRIVES AND COMPOSES Harold McCormick (1872-1941), […]

NEW WEBSITE: THE S YMBOLIC WORLD- Chesterton for the 21st Century

                  G.K. Chesterton called them  fairy tales. They inspired C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. SOME solemn and superficial people (for nearly all very superficial people are solemn) have declared that the fairy-tales are immoral; they base this upon some accidental circumstances or regrettable incidents in the war […]

WAR FILMS FOR MEMORIAL DAY

  The heroic  soldier evidences seven core values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. Filmmakers have  sometimes captured the uniqueness of the soldier in action. Memorial Day is a perfect time to remember.               American Sniper (2014)         Black Hawk Down (2014) […]

IN THE SEASON OF PARSIFAL

The coincidence of a world-wide pandemic and the liturgical season of Lent may prompt some people, stuck at home, to consider Richard Wagner’s masterpiece, PARSIFAL. Set in a mythological world in which the land is suffering because the king is dying, a young Holy Fool, so naive that he doesn’t even know his name, arrives […]