by Dennis Polkow | March 18, 2026Reimagined “Butterfly” Leaves Sumptuous Score Intact but Turns Reality on Its Head Matthew Ozawa’s multidimensional staging of “Butterfly” that premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2023 is now being presented at his home company of Lyric Opera, where he is chief artistic director.
by Dennis Polkow | February 6, 2026Solid Singing Takes Lyric’s “Così” Beyond Buffoonery Lyric’s production transports the Da Ponte-Mozart opera to a 1930s seaside resort, where the colors, costumes, scenery and approach are overstated.
by Tristan Bruns | January 15, 2026A New Phantom Stalks the Streets of Naperville in BrightSide’s “Phantom in Concert” In between songs, the actors engage in dialogues and soliloquies that flesh out the narrative, which delves deeper into the backstory of the Phantom than the Lloyd Webber version.
by Mark Thomas Ketterson | November 5, 2025Lyric Opera Revives “Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci” in a Double Bill of Italian Opera The classic Elijah Moshinsky stagings of Mascagni and Leoncavallo’s works follow the opera's season-opening mounting of Cherubini’s "Medea."
by Dennis Polkow | October 16, 2025Hometown Heroes Triumph in Lyric’s First-Ever “Medea” The long journey to get Cherubini’s “Medea" to Lyric Opera culminates in a spectacular production and stellar performance.
by Dennis Polkow | September 11, 2025Lyric’s Sunday in the Park Gives Chicago Opera Fans a Taste of the Season to Come The season preview concert overlapped with Taste of Chicago, creating a sometimes amusing Ivesian auditory collision.
by Dennis Polkow | October 4, 2024Double Freedom from Tyranny: A Review of “Fidelio” at Lyric Opera and “Leonora” at Chicago Opera Theater
by Dennis Polkow | February 23, 2024Kindling a Fire: A Review of “The Matchbox Magic Flute” at Goodman Theatre
