In a Monday (3/24) Reuters report, Mary Wisniewski writes that Chicago “has not only preserved its devotion to opera, it has expanded it, despite hard times for the art form elsewhere.… Ticket sales for Chicago’s Lyric are up 15 percent for fiscal year 2013.… The smaller Chicago Opera Theater (COT) … last year saw a 20 percent jump in subscribers, said general director Andreas Mitisek. New companies have sprung up as well. Haymarket Opera Company specializes in the Baroque era, and South Shore Opera Company has done shows using African-American casts.… What’s going right in Chicago? One factor is an active, experimental local theater scene, Mitisek said. So COT can find an audience for shows like Ricky Ian Gordon’s ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ staged last year at public swimming pools, used as staging for the mythical River Styx.… Chicago’s generous philanthropic community helps offset the rising costs of mounting an operatic production.… Lyric now offers a musical … [and] started ‘Lyric Unlimited,’ with projects ranging from family shows to the world’s first mariachi opera…. Lyric is not abandoning the classics … but fresh programming and $20 seats for college students bring new fans into Lyric’s Art Deco theater, [Lyric General Director Anthony] Freud said.”
Posted March 25, 2014
