Erwartung/Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Last night was opening night of Chicago Opera Theater's double bill of these two great one-act operas. We performed for a very enthusiastic and packed house. Most people are familiar with Samuel Ramey, who is famous for the role of Bluebeard. Of course, he sounds fantastic. But everyone needs to hear Krisztina Szabó as Judith and Nancy Gustafson's solo performance in Erwartung. I love both of these works. But, most of my friends and colleagues know how much I love Schoenberg. He was an excellent orchestrator who really understood how to write idiomatically for all of the orchestral instruments.

We have four more performances. I highly recommend coming out to see this very fine, unique production! You can get tickets thru the COT website.

http://www.chicagooperatheater.org/season/season7-opera2.shtml

If you need any more encouragement...check out Jim Palermo's top eight reason's for seeing these operas.

http://www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org/node/1868

Also, another great resource for background on this production and all things COT is Brian Dickie's blog. Brian is the general director for Chicago Opera Theater.

http://briandickie.typepad.com/my_weblog/