Visit to Boulder to see Fiddle

We went to Boulder to see Fiddle. Spent most of our time with her at Frasier Manor, but we did have dinner at Sushi Zanmai and a breakfast at The Buff with the sorority crowd. On Friday, we had dinner with Ms. K. and Mr. J at Turley's (formerly The Harvest) but none of us had the spiced tea.

Taos: L=McC

It was Mr. P's birthday. A good time was had by all in Taos.

Click here to see the full photo album. Go to the April 2007 folder. The password is the street that we live on in Chicago.

Flyin' West at Court

Court...consistently good.























"Set in 1898, Pearl Cleage’s powerful look at the African American woman pioneer explores the lives of a small group of women as they leave the oppressive South for the West and settle together in the all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas. Directed by Ron OJ Parson, who brought the critically-acclaimed and sold-out production of August Wilson’s Fences to Court’s stage last season."

My Dinner with Mr. B, Redux

Dinner with workmates and a former workmate who is now works for Chicago Shakes...

Finally, an excuse to try Spacca Napoli.

Sparrow, Redux

Went to see The Sparrow, this time at Steppenwolf. Still terrific. See the 2/10/2007 entry for an exerpt of Chris Jones's review.

Jeanne Gang at Yale Club

Went to hear Jeanne Gang talk about her work at the Yale Club. Among her new works in Aqua.

Chicago Opera Theatre: Ulysses

A really great production (again) at Chicago Opera Theatre. Tribune review excerpt below:














By John von Rhein
Tribune music critic

March 30, 2007

It has taken Chicago Opera Theater nearly seven years to complete its cycle of the three surviving Monteverdi operas in productions by conductor Jane Glover and director Diane Paulus. The spare but potent realization of "The Return of Ulysses" ("Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria") that opened COT's spring season Wednesday in the Harris Theater at Millennium Park makes the wait worthwhile.

The moral of "Ulysses" would seem to be that even the meddling of the gods in human affairs cannot stay the course of true love and constancy.

On one side are the deities Jove (Jason Collins), Minerva (Fiona Murphy) and Neptune (Darren K. Stokes), for whom mortals are mere pawns on a cosmic chessboard. On the other side are Queen Penelope (Marie Lenormand), stoically awaiting the return of her husband, Ulysses (Mark Le Brocq), from the Trojan War. Disguised, he slays her greedy suitors and convinces her of his true identity before they join in a sensuous love duet.

"Ulysses" is positively Shakespearean in its fusion of heroic, tragic and broadly comic elements. Paulus has made the highly stylized conceits of early Italian Baroque opera feel as fresh to modern ears as the tangy, colorful continuity of sounds Glover, working from her own edition of the score, elicits from her fine period-instruments orchestra.

Together they inspire a large, mostly young ensemble -- typical of general director Brian Dickie's shrewd casting of singers -- to make the words and notes of this text-driven opera really matter to us. The result is living, breathing drama that speaks with a contemporary voice.
...

The unit set by the celebrated architect Rafael Vinoly abstracts the island of Ithaca into a minimalist, multi-leveled construct, with folding doors that disclose blood-red interiors suggesting the decadence of the court. Simple ancient-modern costumes and pastel lighting by Aaron Black add to the show's stark, clean look. Less is emphatically more here: An undulating blue cloth and puffs of dry-ice fog are enough to represent Neptune's oceanic realm.