Stories by Hedy Weiss

In addition to the bravura performances of its dancers, the exuberant works of a number of different choreographers and the excellent group of musicians that gathered for its grand finale, the company attracted an impressively vast, immensely enthusiastic audience.

Should any further proof be needed that 2022 has lived up to its designation as “The Year of Chicago Dance,” the performances throughout the month of October alone — whether by resident companies or international visitors — serve as evidence the title is fully deserved.

A love affair between two artists who share a gift for letter-writing. And then a wonderfully devised celebration of Broadway classics. Talk about a study in contrasts. You could not have found a more ideal example of just such a pairing of personalities and styles than the unusual concert performed last week on the Lyric Opera stage by the golden-voiced soprano Renee Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry, both of whom can shift easily between opera and musical theater.

"Swing State" is the 10th play by Rebecca Gilman to be staged at the Goodman Theatre in the past 25 years, and one of the last plays to be directed there by her long-time champion, Robert Falls, who is now working his way through his final season as the Goodman's artistic director.

The Joffrey Ballet spun onto the Lyric Opera House stage with a program of three beautifully danced works under the umbrella title “Beyond Borders.” Those “borders” were stylistic rather than geographical.

A symphonic poem of exceptional beauty by Cesar Franck. A thrilling, grand-scale performance of a masterwork by Modest Mussorgsky. And a breathtaking rendering of a Mozart piano concerto featuring a young, award-winning pianist.

As any traveler will tell you, a trip to Spain is invariably a great treat. But an evening spent with Chicago's Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater is, unquestionably, an ideal temporary substitute.

“Refraction” is the all-encompassing title of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s fall program at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, and it marks the start of the celebrated company’s 45th anniversary “Sapphire” season.

What truly set Orchestra Hall on fire came in the second half of the program as Maestro Riccardo Muti, in subtle but wonderfully expressive balletic form, led an altogether blazing performance of Prokofiev’s “Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major,” a 1944 masterwork composed at the height of World War II.

Lynn Nottage’s most recent play, “Clyde’s — a nominee at last year’s Tony Awards that is now receiving a production at the Goodman Theatre — deals with a rarely explored but crucial issue. It’s the matter of the extreme difficulty faced by those who have been incarcerated and who, upon release, find it all but impossible to find a job.

One day before Ukraine was invaded by Russia earlier this year, the company unknowingly boarded one of the last flights out of Kyiv to Paris, the first stop on a planned tour. The company has not returned home since then.

If you needed to be reminded of the glorious sound Maestro Riccardo Muti has nurtured during his 13-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Thursday evening’s concert, marking the start of the 2022-23 season, served as a perfect example.

“The Garbologists” is an engaging, sharply written, and cleverly titled two-character play by Lindsay Joelle now receiving its first professional production by Northlight Theatre. The production follows two garbage collectors who have a competitive tension and developing connection. 

Scaled to opera house grandeur, the production involves a total of 100 performers including a cast of strong actors, an ensemble of sensational dancers, a large chorus and the full Lyric Opera Orchestra.

In addition to its ideal cast, it is the seamless and often breathtaking dance sequences that set this production of “Hello, Dolly!” at Marriott Theatre apart. 

“I don’t come here to shame the founders (of our country), or in the case of my play, their spouses,” playwright James Ijames writes. “I come here to test the strength of their ideals.”

Court Theatre has opened its 2022-23 season with “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Joseph Kesselring’s maniacally zany 1941 Broadway hit that is probably most widely known by way of its 1944 film version starring Cary Grant and Boris Karloff.

“It Starts Now” is not an easy work to describe. It is a transfixing physical manifestation of human existence — epic in its emotional tension, its simultaneously real and mystical aura and its remarkable dancing.

It was in 1919 that Chagall assumed the position of commissar of arts for Vitebsk and founded the Vitebsk Art School, which opened its doors to all who wanted to pursue their artistic dreams. That marks the setting for a world premiere play. 

Both events served as the latest vivid illustration of why 2022 has rightly been designated “The Year of Chicago Dance.”

“Chopin & Liszt in Paris” is the latest “musical film” created by Hershey Felder, widely known to Chicago audiences for his years of live performances in the city. Felder portrays the flamboyant Liszt, but he performs a great deal of Chopin’s music as he spins the story of his complex artistic relationship with that composer.

On Sunday evening, in the wake of a thunderous few days of the Chicago Air and Water Show, Enrique Mazzola, Lyric Opera’s Music Director (along with Donald Lee III, the inaugural Ryan Opera Center conductor/pianist), led the Lyric Opera Orchestra and singers from the Ryan Opera Center’s esteemed training center on the same stage of the Pritzker Pavillion.

Despite its many virtues and ambitious grand-scale staging, strong voices, daring swordplay, flamenco gypsy dances, lavish costumes, a tale of bitter sibling rivalry, political oppression and romance, plus the rousing music of the Gipsy Kings (including the irresistible “Bamboleo”) this take on the “Zorro” story needs work.

Saturday evening’s Dance for Life program at the Auditorium Theatre served as an invaluable example of what a treasure that community has become. And the annual benefit extravaganza — a grand showcase of the city’s impressive range of talent and styles — was driven by an even more crucial goal.

In a pre-Broadway Chicago tryout, “The Devil Wears Prada” musical features miscalculated costume design, a score lacking in magic and uneven direction. What’s more, the attempt to update the story for 2022 undercuts the time period so essential to both the book and film. 

Performed to breathtaking effect by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, along with the Chicago Children’s Choir, and a brilliant assemblage of instrumental and vocal soloists, the concert was superbly led by Marin Alsop, Ravinia’s chief conductor.