I'm out of the office today tending to family matters but posting this as it appeared today on suntimes.com. Additions/revisions to come!
Chicago Sun-Times, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 11:24AM
Pianist Lang Lang sets a night at the opera (house)
BY ANDREW PATNER
Lang Lang Lang (pictured in 2009) will play a May recital at the Civic Opera House. | Odd Andersen~AP
Can Wrigley Field be far behind?
In the latest indication of a new team moving into the executive suite at the Civic Opera House, Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Wednesday morning that the company will present international piano superstar Lang Lang on May 12, 2012, the Chinese performer’s only Chicago area appearance next season.
And, no, the flashy keyboard player and classical music advocate won’t be singing or accompanying singers. He won’t even be featuring transcriptions of opera or vocal music. The solo program holds Bach’s first partita, Schubert’s last, B-Flat Major, sonata and 12 Chopin etudes.
In a statement, Lyric’s incoming new general director Anthony Freud, who officially takes up his duties October 1, said such events were a part of a “larger vision” for the 57-year-old opera company. Lyric owns its own theatre and other sections of the Civic Opera House and from time to time has presented vocal concerts and rented out the venue to other presenters.
Piano recitals are not regular fare in opera’s larger homes. The Opera House seats 3,563, more than 1,000 more than Orchestra Hall’s 2,522. New York’s Metropolitan Opera has presented two such recitals -- Vladimir Horowitz in 1983 and Daniel Barenboim in 2008.
Freud and Fleming are following other houses and companies in presenting non-operatic events both as a means of boosting their venue’s profile and increasing off-season income.
New audiences definitely are part of the agenda for both guest artist and presenter. Rather than the now traditional supertitles projected above the stage of the Ardis Krainik Theatre, a large screen will show the view of Lang Lang’s hands from an overhead camera.
Lang Lang, 29, came to international attention 12 years ago when he made a last-minute debut at a Ravinia gala concert in Highland Park, substituting for an indisposed Andre Watts. Since then he has become a global phenomenon, conquering everything from ticket and album sales to soundtracks for films and the multi-million-selling video racing game Gran Turismo 5. In addition to Ravinia, where he appears regularly, Lang Lang also has played locally and in Berlin with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, given recitals at Orchestra Hall, and appeared as soloist at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park and in educational programs in the area.
Lang Lang’s performance at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was seen by more than 4 billion people worldwide and is said to have inspired more than 40 million young Chinese -- and presumably their parents -- to take up the piano.
Imagine what the late, legendary Lyric press agent Danny Newman could have done with this?
Tickets for the Saturday evening recital, priced from $25-$125, will be offered first to Lyric subscribers beginning Friday, with public online and telephone sales starting August 1. Box office sales begin September 19. A package including a post-concert reception with Lang Lang will sell for $500, and a limited number of onstage seats will be available for $95 and $125 by telephone sale only.
Comments