See Chicago's Lyric Opera on Channel 11 this weekend
The Lyric Opera of Chicago returns to your television, and this time the Joffrey Ballet is joining in.
“Orphée et Eurydice,” an 18th-century mythological opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck about an artist's quest to bring his lover back from the Underworld, graced the Lyric stage in 2017 and was filmed for PBS' “Great Performances” series, airing Friday, Jan. 18, on WTTW.
“It's always an honor when ‘Great Performances' brings an arts performance from Chicago to a national audience,” said WTTW's Daniel Soles in a prepared statement.
Anthony Freud, Lyric Opera's general director, president and CEO, is similarly excited: “It's a breathtakingly beautiful piece newly imagined by the legendary director, choreographer, and designer John Neumeier, conducted by Harry Bicket, with our wonderful international cast, the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus, and dancers from The Joffrey Ballet. This production is unforgettable,” he said in a statement.
Our own Scott C. Morgan agrees — he reviewed the “triumph” of a show in the Sept. 25, 2017, edition of the Daily Herald, calling it “a potent reminder of the consoling power of the arts, even in the face of unbearable loss.”
The two-hour presentation begins at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, on WTTW Channel 11. It will run again at 3 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 20.
Set your alarm
The Oscar nominations will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 22, on the 7 o'clock hour of the morning news shows, your Twitter feed, your Facebook wall and pretty much every screen in the nation. The Best Picture category can include up to 10 movies, and these five will almost certainly make the cut: “Black Panther,” “The Favourite,” “Green Book,” “Roma” and “A Star is Born.”
The big show doesn't happen until Sunday, Feb. 24, and this year's edition doesn't even have a host. ABC executives are sure hoping for better ratings — 2018's Oscars were watched by 26.5 million viewers, the lowest Nielsen rating in the show's history. If “Black Panther” does get that Best Picture nod, expect the commercials to remind you of that fact over and over and over again. (And hey, maybe all the Avengers will show up to present a second trailer for “Avengers: Endgame”!)
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.