In terms of composer anniversaries, 2009 is a crowded year.
It's the 350th anniversary of Henry Purcell's birth, the 250th anniversary of George Frideric Handel's death, the 200th anniversary of Joseph Haydn's death and the 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn's birth.
If that's too many anniversaries for you to mark, Chicago's Music of the Baroque has just the program for you. In just one sitting, you can hear pieces from all four composers in the concert "Celebrate!"
This composer anniversary confluence luckily fits into most of Music of the Baroque's mission to champion early music. ( Mendelssohn is only romantic in the bunch. ) On the bill are Handel's Coronation Anthem No. 1 ( from Zadok the Priest ) , Haydn's Mass in B-flat Major, Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A Major and the King Oberon birthday sequence from Purcell's The Fairy Queen ( go for this segment, alone ) .
Jane Glover conducts two performances of Celebrate! The first is at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 29, at First United Methodist Church, 516 Church, Evanston ( $38-$60 ) , then at 7:30 p.m. March 30 at Millennium Park's Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph ( $30-$75 ) . Call 312-551-1414 or visit www.baroque.org .
Even more baroque music is available in the next few weeks. Out countertenor David Daniels makes his only Chicago-area appearance this season in a recital of Bach and Handel music with the English Concert chamber orchestra under conductor Harry Bicket's direction at the Harris Theater at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 29 ( see interview in this issue ) .
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra ( CSO ) gets in even more baroque action, but not with any of the anniversary boys. Acclaimed Israeli conductor and violinist Pinchas Zukerman leads a mini-Bach festival in early April with a series of two Bach to Bach concerts.
Many of the CSO's outstanding soloists are featured, like flutists Jennifer Gunn and Mathieu Dufour, violinist Robert Chen, oboist Eugene Izotov, trumpeter Christopher Martin and harpsichordist Stephen Alltop.
The seven Bach to Bach concerts alternate between April 1-7 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan ( $17-$199 ) . Call 312-294-3000 or visit www.cso.org .
Another baroque-influenced piece arrives from Mexico City when Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes performs Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati at 7:30 p.m. March 20 and 21 and 3 p.m. March 22 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago ( $25 ) . Call 312-397-4010 or visit www.mcachicago.org .
This surreal drama by Claudio Valdes Kuri features lots of opera to tell the tale of castrati ( boys who were castrated before puberty to preserve the soprano range of their voices ) . Many went on to become operatic superstars of the Baroque age, but at what price? Presented in Spanish with English subtitles.
The MCA is also sponsoring a discussion with Kuri and Chicago Opera Theater general director Brian Dickie, "The Baroque is Now." Beatriz Margain, cultural attaché for the Consulate of Mexico, facilitates the free discussion at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 21. Reservations are required.
If all this talk of the castrati is turning you off the baroque era, there are also romantic and modern concerts to go to.
The CSO hosts conductor Jaap van Zweden ( a replacement for Semyon Bychkov ) for performances of Brahms' Symphony No. 4 and Wagenaar's Cyrano de Bergerac. Also on the bill is the out and exquisitely dressed French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet performing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2. Performances are 8 p.m. March 19 and 21, 1:30 p.m. March 20, at Symphony Center. ( $21-$199 ) .
The visiting London Symphony Orchestra goes Russian with an all-Prokofiev concert conducted by its newly appointed principal conductor, Valery Gergiev. Prokofiev's Classical Symphony and Symphony No. 5 are featured, while pianist Vladimir Feltsman performs the Piano Concerto No. 2. Catch this at 3 p.m. March 22 at Symphony Center. ( $36-$199 )
Opera matters
Opera purists in New York had their knickers in a twist at the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Bellini's 1831 piece La Sonnambula ( The Sleepwalker, pictured. From the way opera bloggers were carrying on, it's as if they wanted to take Chicago director Mary Zimmerman out into the street to be shot for her conceptual approach to this antiquated melodrama.
At the urging of star French soprano Natalie Dessay, Zimmerman found a way to set La Sonnambula away from its typically quaint Swiss village. Instead, the opera takes place in a modern New York studio where an opera company is rehearsing a production of La Sonnambula.
The production also stars Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez as the title character's jealous lover and is conducted by Evelino Pido.
Audiences around the world will get a chance to see if Zimmerman's concept works when the Metropolitan Opera transmits a live high-definition simulcast to movie theaters around the world at noon, March 21. Visit www.fathomevents.com for theater locations and ticket prices.
