The Season

 

QUEENIE PIE

Duke Ellington
The Harris Theater of Music and Dance
205 E. Randolph St.;    Feb 15, 19, 21, 23, 2014
Bursting with Duke Ellington’s signature big-band sound, this Chicago premiere blends clever lyrics with opera, jazz, and musical theater. The story takes place in a Harlem that is partly real and partly mythical, and on a tropical island that is wholly imaginary. Its heroine is a Harlem beauty queen whose search for lasting beauty becomes a kind of spiritual quest. Make sure you are there for this collaboration with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra!

 

 

THE EMPEROR OF ATLANTIS/THE CLEVER ONE

This double-bill features two powerful satires about oppression and dicatatorship. Both works were written in vastly different circumstances in 1943 Germany. Ullmann's EMPEROR OF ATLANTIS is a satirical send-up of fascism, set in Atlantis where Emperor Overall advocates total war against everyone and Death retires from his duties. This remarkably funny piece was written in the Theresienstadt camp. THE CLEVER ONE premiered in Frankfurt and is a cautionary fairytale that tells about a foolish, tyrannical king being bested by a clever woman. Provocative, insightful, this tongue-in-cheek double-bill is a must see!

 

Macbeth, incited by witches' prophecies and the promptings of his manipulating wife, sells his soul to be king. Once a great man, he trades honor for power. Doomed by his own deeds, he is killed by a man "not born of a woman". Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch's lavish and highly dramatic 1906 score creates the perfect tone for this bone-chilling thriller. Come and experience the Chicago  premiere of the "other" Macbeth.