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As Igor commented: Ukrainians know how to get people together on a very short notice: the Sunday rally , though last-minute announced, got a decent crowd and press coverage.
All photos are from Igor’s album.
What would you think about the musical with the name like that?
Yes, I thought the same, especially after reading the short description about the town where people were required to pay for the usage of the toilets, and how they decided to resist. I thought it might be just a comedy show, and I was going to skip it (ad not to subscribe to Theo at all this season), but my friend MaryAnn said she wanted to go, and I always use any opportunity to meet with her. And as it almost always happen to me, I went without prior reading about it.
Well, it was anything but what I thought. Very sad, very political, sort of hopeless by the end. I think I will discover something new till the day I die.
One of the great things about Theo is that they absolutely ignore the “official line”, and still do what they believe is right:
About the show itself. The built a lot of temporary constructs inside the theater, and everything looks amazing:
Below are official pictures from the Theo website, and I hope they will post some videos, and then I will be able to repost.
I was glad to spend time with MaryAnn; we stayed a little bit longer after the show, and she drove me home, and we talked in her car, and a little bit more.
My subscriptions keep me busy :). My neighbor and I went to the “Hell’s Kitchen,” which was a part of our Broadway in Chicago subscription. I never read any reviews before I go to see the show, and this time was not exception. I was not prepared to what I was going to see, but loved it. As it turned out, the reviews were mixed, so it’s good that I didn’t read them beforehand:).
I loved the show itself, but even more, I loved the reaction of the audience: everyone was so moved by what was going on on stage, aaahed and ooohed, and gasped when the mother slapped her daughter in the cheek, and burst into applauding after each musical number.
And on Friday, I went to Carmina Burana at the Lyric. That was a part of our Lyric subscription, but my neighbor told me from the very beginning that she won’t be interested, so I took my friend Y. with me. She loves music, but she never heard Carmina Burana, and it was a real treat to give her this experience. Also, she never sat that close to the stage in the Lyric Opera building, and she said that she would rather get one ticket that close instead of ten tickets on the very top. And I agree!
The Nova world-traveling exhibition is now in Chicago, and I visited in on Tuesday.
It was the first time when I understood the timeline of the October 6 events, and saw the footage filmed by the hostages and those who managed to escape. Although the exhibit is put together exceptionally well, and leave a deep emotional impression, I left it with mixed feelings.
I didn’t post anything about this visit for several days, hoping to figure out what didn’t feel right, but still can’t pinpoint it. I hate to sound critical of the exhibit organizers, because they’ve done tremendous work, but I also can’t brush off the unease I felt afterward. Most likely, it was related to the testimonies at the end. It was actually a one testimony of a survivor, and I honestly think it was too much both for him and people listening. Or maybe not.
I might still figure it our later.
Second day back to Chicago, and it’s a really long day! Escorting before work, work, nail salon, meeting with a friend for a quick bite before the opera, and finally – a Lyric Opera performance: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci – two operas in one evening. Now that it’s already way past 11 PM, I realized I made a mistake – I should have taken Uber back home. But it’s still warm outside, and I hopped on a bus just after I got out of Lyric, and I thought that I would be home before eleven. But then, I waited for a train at Lake for 15 minutes, and now we are stopped due to the police activity on Howard – do not ask why we are sitting at Thorndale!
OK, we started moving!
Anyway, it was awesome that my friend Elina could come with me, because she does not go to Lyric as often as I, and it is always great to share the joy of music, conversation and an intermission dessert at Florian 🙂
Igor told me about Palatine protests and showed his photos, and it was only later that I saw the news about the incident that prompted the anti-police rally. The news cited “about 20 people,” but since I already saw Igor’s photos, I knew there were way more people.
I am really proud of Palatine’s community, and I feel that our family contributed our small part to Palatine being vocal about any injustices.
Below is Igor’s article from Journal and Topics about the rally, and I think it explains everything perfectly. My Palatine friends, you rock!
Continue reading “Palatine Protests”
Boris is a “lifetime supporter” of FIBO – Finnish Baroque Orchestra, so he receives all their advertisements and often attends their concerts. The concert last Monday was at St. Michael’s Church in Kirkkonummi, where one of my Finnish friends lives. It’s always a little bit of a project to meet with her in person, precisely because she lives at a distance from Helsinki, so when Boris saw this concert announcement, he suggested we could meet up there and attend the concert together.
I am really glad we did. The church looks amazing. The oldest parts of it date back to the 13th century. Unfortunately, all of the inside was destroyed during the Soviet occupation, but the space with its outstanding acoustics is still there.
Of course, I am not a specialist in baroque music, so all six composers were unknown to me (Boris knew at least two), but the most astonishing thing I learned was that there were women composers in the 17th century, and not only nuns, and their music and their authorship actually survived through centuries. I feel so inadequate not knowing about that!
The two women composers I learned about were Isabella Leonarda and Antonia Bembo.
Isabella Leonarda spent all her adult life in a convent, but Antonia Bembo was a singer and a noble person, and I was like: why didn’t I know anything about that?!
It’s still working around the clock, meeting with people and talking with potential sponsors.
A colleague sent me a picture from the first conference day (the Community Events Day), and I really like it:
This morning was a Women’s Breakfast. it was hosted in a different hotel, and the setup was a work of art!
That was an additional opportunity to chat with many of my friends with whom I hadn’t had a chance to exchange a word at that conference yet.
It rained all day, so I was glad we had a chance to walk outside on Tuesday. Even though it was raining, we wanted to go for dinner with my UK co-worker, and we found a restaurant with mostly authentic food within walking distance.
I am really happy with how everything is going so far, with all the conversations I had, and my outlook for my upcoming conference is optimistic.
On Thursday, I had a very packed after-work schedule. First, I went to the Art Institute to finally see the Strange Realities exhibit. Usually, I am among the first to see a new exhibit, but this time, I have something going on each Thursday, and I didn’t have time to make a separate trip to the Loop on any weekend.
Upon entering the exhibit, I realized that symbolism as an art movement had completely dropped from my radar many years ago. In high school, we studied symbolism in literature, including Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely. We “obligatory loved” Balmont, Annensky, and other poets of the “Silver Century” of Russian poetry. I just tried to find (unsuccessfully) a blog post where I wrote about how an “intelligent person” in Soviet Russia was supposed to admire certain poets and writers, who were not explicitly banned, but were not praised by the official propaganda; loving symbolists was one of those “requirements.”
Now I realized that for many years, it was not obligatory anymore, and this artistic movement dropped from my sight, and it took me a while to realize: yea, I know what it is all about!
I think I will go see this exhibit again; I didn’t have enough time because I also wanted to catch up on the Elizabeth Catlett exhibit (I saw it as a “second one” when we were at the Art Institute with Boris in August, and it was not enough).
Next stop was the CSO. A week before, they advertised the pickup dinners at the Rotunda. I think it was in response to the disappearance of the affordable “before the show” dining options, which I also complained about. So I tried it, and the answer is no :). I would rather stop at Lea!
As for the concert, it was absolutely amazing! It was an all-Berlioz program with Klaus Makela conducting, and now I have finally started to like him. I won’t say I disliked him when I heard him conducting for the first couple of times, but he is so different from Riccardo Muti that it was a difficult switch! This time, I sat with my mouth open throughout the whole concert 🙂
Oh, and the violist Antoine Tamestit was absolutely outstanding!!! Loved every moment of his performance in the Harold in Italy.
One of the best shows I have ever attended at the Lyric Opera!
It often happens that when you listen to an opera, you don’t get engaged with the plot and mainly focus on the voices, but that wasn’t the case this time. The show was really dramatic, and it felt almost inappropriate to applaud between musical numbers because a tragedy had been unfolding on stage.
Also, I loved this gigantic mirror on stage, which allowed to see everything what was going on from another angle:
The video and the rest of the photos are from the Lyric Opera website.
It was my first time listening to Sondra Radvanovsky live, and I so-so loved her! Most times, I am not super-excited about sopranos, but she is so versatile, and so artistic; definitely my favorite soprano from now on:).
Oh, and one more thing: the guards were wearing ICE masks! And I am sure it was not a part of the original design!
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