Hedy Weiss: Theater Reviews
CSO Soars With Superb Works by Gershwin, Bernstein, Dvorak and Price: Review
Conductor James Gaffigan and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on May 31, 2025. (Todd Rosenberg)
There was only a single performance of an exhilarating CSO concert this past Saturday evening. It attracted a packed house, with a wonderfully enthusiastic audience, and could easily have run for the usual three performances. Leading the orchestra was the New York-born conductor James Gaffigan, who possesses the energy, grace and panache of a well-trained dancer.
Exhilarating from start to finish, the opening work was Antonin Dvorak’s “Suite in A Major (American),” composed for piano in 1894 and orchestrated in 1895 while he was in the U.S. and visited Chicago. (It was only performed in its full orchestral form some years later.)
The five movements of the 22-minute piece opened with lyrical beauty and charm, exuberant rhythm and wonderful color from the winds. Then it was on to a second movement that began with an intense burst of sound and went through many mood swings — from the lyrical to the percussive. Next came a lyrical but rich use of the strings and winds, with beautiful melodies. The fourth movement was full of an alluring singing quality, accented by the plucked strings of the viola. And the final movement was rich in strong rhythm and speed before it shifted to the lyrical and then finally let out a big burst of sound from the brass section and the full orchestra.
Next came a six-minute performance of two songs with music by the American composer Florence Price (beautifully orchestrated by Lior Rosner) — “My Dream” (set to a poem by Langston Hughes) and “Beside the Sea” (set to a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar). And then came Three Dance Episodes from Leonard Bernstein’s 1944 Broadway musical “On the Town,” a show about wartime sailors and their time on shore leave. Just 10 minutes long, it was a fine and varied sampling of Bernstein’s usual emotional flair.
The second half of the concert brought Janai Brugger, the radiant Chicago-bred soprano opera singer, to the stage to perform two beautiful arias (“Summertime” and “My Man’s Gone Now”) from George Gershwin’s richly emotional opera “Porgy and Bess.”
Janai Brugger performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on May 31, 2025. (Todd Rosenberg)
Next came Gershwin’s irresistible 1928 symphonic work “An American in Paris,” richly theatrical and full of jazzy rhythms and blues and wonderful melodies.
Closing the concert was another Bernstein piece — the irresistibly exuberant five-minute overture to “Candide,” his 1956 operetta based on the novel by Voltaire. A phenomenal piece of music set at high speed, it drew on every section of this remarkable orchestra.
Note: Coming up soon at Symphony Center (June 5-7) are three concerts led by conductor Sir Mark Elder, featuring Prokofiev’s “Symphony No. 7,” Wagner’s suite from “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” and the first CSO performance of Florence Price’s “Violin Concerto No. 2,” with violinist Randall Goosby making his CSO debut. The 29-year old son of a Korean mother and Black father, the prize-winning Goosby made his earliest debut with the Jacksonville Symphony (at the age of 9) and has since performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and many others.
Coming next will be the much anticipated return visit of the ever wonderful CSO Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti.
In three concerts from June 12-14, Muti will conduct Haydn’s “Symphony No. 48 (Maria Theresa)” and Schubert’s “Symphony No. 4 (Tragic)” — as well as Telemann’s “Trumpet Concerto in D Major” and M. Haydn’s “Trumpet Concerto in D Major,” both featuring principal trumpet Esteban Batallan.
The second concert Muti will be conducting has been changed. Replacing Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust” will be Verdi’s “Requiem Mass,” with performances on June 19-21 and 24. The powerful work was a two-time Grammy Award-winning CSO Resound recording that was led by Muti.
Symphony Center is located at 220 S. Michigan Ave. For tickets, visit cso.org or phone 312-294-3000.
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