Upcoming and Noteworthy

The new Broadway comedy Chicken and Biscuits takes place at a funeral in an African-American church. It turns out to be not the sort of funeral you'd expect. Hear Theater Critic Howard Shapiro's review of the play this week on In a Broadway Minute, Friday (10/22) at 8 am and Saturday (10/23) at 10 am.

Whether to subvert our fears or to generate laughter from tension, filmmakers have frequently juxtaposed humor with the supernatural – or at any rate death.  Get into the Halloween spirit with music from four macabre comedies, including “Arsenic and Old Lace” (Max Steiner), “The Trouble with Harry” (Bernard Herrmann), “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (Vic Mizzy), and “Beetlejuice” (Danny Elfman).  It’s a mishmash of horror and humor, this Saturday at 6 pm.

LA Opera is taking us to sea on this week’s Sunday Opera (10/24 3:00 p.m.) with their recent production of Benjamin Britten’s 1951 opera “Billy Budd.”   Based on the novel by Herman Melville, the story centers on the naïve and innocent sailor who, after being transferred to a new ship, becomes the obsession of the Master-at-arms, John Claggart, who is accidentally killed by Billy when Claggart pushes him too far.  This results in the hanging of the young Budd who is loved by the crew and, for whom they would mutiny, but Billy, true to his good nature, resignedly goes to his fate and is hanged for the death of Claggart. 

After last month’s look at new songs that were added to film versions of musicals, we found that we had enough material for another program, and this week’s Dress Circle (10/24 7:00 p.m.) is the result.   Some of the films from which we’ve mined our songs include “Bells Are Ringing,” “Call Me Madam,” “Grease,” “Guys and Dolls,” “The Music Man,” “Evita,” and “On the Town.”  

  This Sunday at 8 pm on The Lyric Stage we have musical selections from The Threepenny Opera, whose  disreputable characters and social and political satire of Berlin in 1928 were inspired by Elisabeth Hauptman's translation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera from 1728.

Manfred is the quintessential Byronic hero, a romantic superman who endures unimaginable suffering and mysterious guilt in connection with the death of his beloved.  He wanders the Alps, longing for extinction, and meets his fate defiantly, rejecting all authority, whether corporeal or supernatural.  When conductor Sir Thomas Beecham resurrected Schumann’s incidental music for Byron’s dramatic poem, it was an act of total reimagination.  Hear selections from this seldom-heard 1954 recording, Sunday at 10 pm.

Let’s talk about an operatic hero who does very little during the course of the opera other than be an extremely nice person.   That’s Tito (Emperor Titus) in this week’s Sunday Opera (10/17 3:00 p.m.) in Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” from LA Opera.   Tito (Russell Thomas) is the Roman Emperor who has chosen Berenice, the daughter of a rival, to be his wife.  This angers Vitellia (Quanqun Yu) who, as the daughter of the former emperor, feels she should be next in line.  She convinces Sesto (Elizabeth DeShong), a young patrician in love with her, to plot Tito’s assassination.   Meanwhile, Tito has turned his attentions from Berenice to Servilia (Janai Brugger), Sesto’s sister.  

It’s more “Pop-Rodgers” with Lorenz Hart on this week’s Dress Circle (10/17 7:00 p.m.) and the second part of this series.  Once again, we’ll be looking at songs from Rodgers and Hart works that found lives outside of the shows.   Those shows include:  “Spring Is Here,” “By Jupiter,” “Pal Joey,” “She’s My Baby,” “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” “I Married an Angel,” and “Babes in Arms.”  

Sometimes even Romantic geniuses can use a little help.  Tune in for a Liszt of collaborative efforts, including the rarely-heard “Concerto in the Hungarian Style” (orchestrated by Tchaikovsky), “The Black Gondola” (orchestrated by John Adams), and “Hexameron,” a titanic set of piano variations with introduction, interludes and finale by Liszt and contributions from five other virtuoso superstars of the 1830s (among them Carl Czerny, Sigismond Thalberg, and Frédéric Chopin).  Liszt gets by with a little help from his friends, this Sunday at 10 pm.

Join us for a trip to Normandy and the Rouen Opera House for this week’s Sunday Opera (10/10 3:00 p.m.) and their production of Claude Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande.”   Based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the symbolic story focuses on the doomed love of the title characters.  Melisande (Adele Charvet) is found by Golaud (Nicolas Courjal), one of two grandsons of King Arkel (Jean Teitgen), by a spring in the forest looking at what is apparently her crown in the water.  She offers no information to Golaud, but he falls in love with and marries her anyway.   When Golaud brings her home, Melisande meets his brother, Pelleas (Huw Montague Rendall), with whom she is immediately taken, but the two form a Platonic relationship which will eventually cause Golaud to become so jealous that he will kill both Pelleas and Melisande.  

Some months ago, we had fun with “Pop-Kern” and “Pop-Porter,” and on this week’s Dress Circle (10/10 7:00 p.m.), we’re continuing the series with “Pop-Rodgers.”   We’re going to be looking at several shows based on the works of Richard Rodgers, and the first two are going to be dedicated to “pop” renditions of songs written by Rodgers and his first long-time lyricist, Lorenz Hart.  Many of the shows like “Higher and Higher,” “Ever Green,” “America’s Sweetheart,” “One Damn Thing After Another,” "Chee Chee,” and “Spring Is Here” might be unfamiliar, but we’re sure that you’ll know songs such

We’re finishing our brief visit to Opera Southwest on this week’s Sunday Opera (10/3 3:00 p.m.) and a once-lost opera by Giovanni Bottesini about Ali Baba based loosely on the story found in “One Thousand and One Nights.”   Here, however, Ali Baba is an older, now successful merchant who is trying to arrange a profitable marriage for his daughter, Delia.  Delia, however, loves a poor man named Nadir who will do anything to win the hand of his beloved, and, like Ali Baba before him, he stumbles on the secret of the treasure cave of a band of thieves and amasses the fortune he needs, but it’s not all smooth sailing although it does have a happy ending when the pirates, who are hiding in barrels of moka (coffee) are “smoked out” when the contraband barrels containing the thieves are set afire.   The thieves and their leader, Orsacane, are apprehended by Aboul Hassan, the customs officer who was trying to blackmail Ali Baba about the moka to gain the hand of Delia.  

October is the month of pumpkins, ghosties, and black cats, but it’s also the month of calendula and opals and more wonderful New York musical openings which we’ll be sampling on this week’s Dress Circle (10/3 7:00 p.m.).   We’re covering 117 years of Broadway history this month beginning with the opening of Victor Herbert’s hit “Babes in Toyland.”  At the other end of the spectrum, our most recent opening is coming this month (after over a year-long delay because of the pandemic) with the interestingly quirky story of the six wives of Henry VIII titled “Six” which finds those wives meeting to discuss who actually had it the worst with the infamous monarch.