It was a great weekend for contemporary opera in Chicago. Lyric’s not-to-be-missed Dead Man Walking (here’s our review) continued at the Civic Opera House while across the Loop at the Harris Theater, Chicago Opera Theater presented a two-performance, one-weekend run of the 2014 one-act Everest, with an astounding score by Joby Talbot and a libretto by Gene Scheer that turns the tragic 1996 adventure that was the subject of Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air into an emotionally taut opera. (Scheer writes in a program note that he conducted 40 hours of interviews with survivors himself.)
Meanwhile, Lyric Opera has revived its 2014 production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, directed by Robert Falls and set in the 1920s, with an able new cast, including soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen making a welcome Lyric debut as the victim of an attempted rape by Giovanni that sets the opera in motion. On opening night last Thursday, it looked like Falls has dialed back on some of the coke snorting and carnal groping he introduced five years ago, but the lighting effects in this production (including one unearned moment of house-light drama at the end) seemed more heavy-handed than ever. The subject matter couldn’t be more timely, but, in the absence of a radically updated libretto, the music remains the main reason to see this 18th-century gothic tale about the Harvey Weinstein of his era. v
Through 12/8: Wed 11/20, 2 PM; Sat 11/23 and 11/30, 7:30 PM; Tue 11/26 and 12/3, 7 PM; Thu 12/5, 2 PM; Sun 12/8, 2 PM, Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker, 312-827-5600, lyricopera.org g, $39-$299.
