DIRECTOR RE-WRITES FLYING DUTCHMAN

Director Terry McCabe has written brilliantly about the director’s historical obligation to a dramatic  text: “I believe the director’s job is to tell the playwright’s story as clearly and as interestingly as possible.”[i] The operas of Richard Wagner debuted in Chicago with Leonard B. Grover (1833-1926) whose company first performed a Wagnerian opera in the […]

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October 5, 2023 – 11:15 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Art, Books, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater, Uncategorized | Comments Off on DIRECTOR RE-WRITES FLYING DUTCHMAN

STEPPENWOLF’S NO MAN’S LAND: THE HOSPITALITY OF HIRST

As a theater student in college during the 1960s, nothing excited my classmates and me as much as a new play by Harold Pinter. When we found a new Grove Press copy of the latest Pinter play, we would gather on the steps of the theater building, randomly assign roles, and begin a reading. The […]

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August 21, 2023 – 10:55 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, from Paul, History, Quotations, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on STEPPENWOLF’S NO MAN’S LAND: THE HOSPITALITY OF HIRST

BEETHOVEN, MUTI, AND THE GLORY OF GOD

For his final concert as Musical Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti chose Beethovan’s Missa Solemnis. He has compared  Beethoven’s Missa solemnis to “climbing Mount Everest. It is the greatest religious sermon in music. It is the Sistine Chapel of music — a work so complex that it makes every interpreter’s wrists tremble.” The Missa […]

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June 26, 2023 – 9:53 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Music, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theology | Comments Off on BEETHOVEN, MUTI, AND THE GLORY OF GOD

LYRIC OPERA ENDS SEASON WITH THRILLING WEST SIDE STORY

West Side Story first appeared in Chicago when the national touring company opened on October 8, 1959 at the Erlanger Theater (1912), on Clark Street at  the site of the current Chriskindlmart plaza. The legendary Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy loved The musical but not the performance of it. “It takes the big musicals so long […]

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June 25, 2023 – 8:55 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, Dance, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on LYRIC OPERA ENDS SEASON WITH THRILLING WEST SIDE STORY

IT’S MAHLER TIME !!

In 2016, the  British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) invited 150 of the world’s leading conductors to vote for what they considered the greatest symphonies ever written. Beethoven and Brahms — not surprisingly— had two each in the top ten. But three of those places were occupied by Gustav Mahler. Chicago seems to be experiencing  the  year […]

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June 11, 2023 – 11:01 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Art, Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Music, Quotations, Theology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on IT’S MAHLER TIME !!