Lyric Opera of Chicago Lectures

Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti (November 20, 2014)

First performed on December 26, 1830 at Teatro Carcano in Milan, Italy, the opera recounts the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII.  The duet "Sul suo capo aggravi un Dio" between Anna and Jane Seymour, who later became Henry VIII's third wife, is considered one of the finest in the entire operatic repertoire.

This opera is a new production at the Lyric, featuring Sondra Radvanovsky (Anne Boleyn), Jamie Barton (Jane Seymour), Bryan Humel (Percy), John Relyea (Henry VIII), and Kelley O'Connor (Smeton)  It is being performed from December 6-January 16.

Tosca by Giacomo Puccini (January 15, 2015)

The opera was first performed in Rome, Italy in 1900.  The heroine's boyfriend (Cavaradossi) is tortured in the second act at the hands of Scarpia, the villain. Scarpia then tries to force himself on Tosca, but she stabs him to death.

At the end of the story, heroine Tosca is supposed to leap to her death from the roof of the prison.  Most productions equip the stage floor, behind the set, with a huge trampoline/mattress to cushion her fall.  However more than one production miscalculates the bounciness of the trampoline.  In 1960, at the Giacomo Puccini City Center in New York, a large American who landed not on a mattress, but on a trampoline bounced 15 times before the curtain fell - sometimes upside down, then the right way up - now laughing with glee - now screaming with rage.

Other disasters included the soldiers shooting Tosca instead of Cavaradossi and then leaping after her when she jumps at the San Francisco Opera in 1961.  Also in 1950 at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Maria Jeritza tripped up and fell flat on her face in front of Scarpia. She sang her entire aria 'Vissi d'art' lyring on her stomach.

Featured singers at the Lyric are Tatiana Serjan and Hui He (Tosca), Misha Didyk and Jorge de Leon (Cavaradossi), and Evgeny Nikitin and Mark Delavan (Scarpia).  It is being performed from January 24- March 14.

Tannhauser by Richard Wagner (January 29, 2015)

The opera was first performed in Dresden, Germany in 1845.  It involves lessons in Love, Forgiveness, and even meeting the Pope.  It also opens with a full-blown orgy.  After its disastrous Paris premiere because of The Jockey Club, Wagner withdrew it from performance for the nest 30 years.

Wagner's entire life seems to have been dominated by the number 13.  The name Richard Wagner contains 13 letters.  He was born in 1813. (Those digits also add up to 13.)  He was exiled from German for 13 years.  His opera Tannhauser was on the 13th of April and its disastrous Paris premiere was on March 13.  Wagner wrote 13 opera and died on February 13 in the 13th year of the new German government.

The featured singers at the Lyric are Johan Botha (Tannhauser), Amber Wagner (ELisabeth), Michaela Schuster (Venus), Gerald Finley (Wolfram), and John Relyea (Landgraf).  It is being performed from February 9-March 6)

The Passenger by Mieczyslaw Weinberg (February 12, 2015)

This opera was suppressed for more than 40 years.  It was first performed in Russian Passazhirka in 1968.  The libretto is based on the Polish radio play Passenger from Cabin Number 45 (1959) by concentration camp survivor Zofia Posmysz.

The action moves between the white deck of an ocean liner in the early 1960s, where Liese and her husband Walter are bound for Brazil, along with Marta a former prisoner, and the dark horrors of the death camp below, where Liese served as a German SS officer in Auschwitz.

The featured singers are Amanda Majeski (Marta), Daveda Karanas (Liese), Brandon Jovanovich (Walter), Joshua Hopkins (Tadusz), Kelly Kaduce (Katya), and Judith Forst (Bronka).  It is being performed from February 24-March 15.

All lectures will take place in the Multipurpose Room on Thursdays from 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Forthcoming Fiction in December

Here are some Fiction titles coming out in December. You can reserve them by searching our Online Catalog, or give us a call at 847-729-7500.

Perfect Sins by Jo Bannister
Scorched Eggs by Laura Childs

Enter Pale Death by Barbara Cleverly

Once Upon a Grind by Cleo Coyle

You Know Who Killed Me by Loren D. Estleman

Die Again: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen

Saving Grace by Jane Green

The Assassination Option by W.E.B. Griffin

The Big Finish: A Thorn Novel by James W. Hall

Rain on the Dead by Jack Higgins

Collision by Mercedes Lackey

Love Song by Elizabeth Lowell

Woman With a Gun by Phillip Margolin

Deeds of Darkness: a Homefront Detective Mystery by Edward Marston

A Ticket to Oblivion: a Railway Detective Novel by Edward Marston

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid

Suspicion at Seven by Ann Purser

Hush by Karen Robards

The Iris Fan: a Novel of Feudal Japan by Laura Joh Rowland

Thanksgiving Prep

Yes, Thanksgiving really is almost here, but there is more to prepare than the turkey and pumpkin pie. We need to get ready to enter a whole new season, and a book or movie from the library could be just the thing to help. Here are a few of each that feature Thanksgiving:

Books

Thanksgiving Night – Richard Bauch

The story is set in the small Virginia valley town of Point Royal in 1999. The novel is a touching and empathetic portrayal of family: the one we have, and the ones we make. The people who populate these pages are flawed, wounded, stubborn, willful, scarred, often wildly eccentric, and all searching, in one way or another, for love.

The Lay of the Land – Richard Ford

After his second wife leaves him and he has been diagnosed with cancer, Frank Bascomb tries to bring his family together for Thanksgiving weekend.

Dear James – John Hassler

“In this warm, uplifting, wryly humorous novel, the town's moral conscience, Miss Agatha McGee, takes the entire population on an adventure of truthfulness, charity, and forgiveness that no … reader will soon forget." The book starts with a funny lonely hearts Thanksgiving dinner scene, during which Miss Agatha wonders how she will ever survive her retirement from teaching with only the support of the strange assortment of semi-functional friends gathered around her table.

“The Thanksgiving Visitor” – Truman Capote (in The Complete Stories of Truman Capote)

In this beloved story, based on Capote’s childhood memories, narrator Buddy tells the story of the Thanksgiving his eccentric cousin invited Buddy’s sworn enemy to share the meal with them.

Patchwork Planet – Anne Tyler

This book includes a disastrous, funny Thanksgiving potluck meal as a key scene.

Audiobook

Thanksgiving - Janet Evanovich
When Megan Murphy discovered a floppy-eared rabbit gnawing on the hem of her skirt, she meant to give its careless owner, Dr. Patrick Hunter, a piece of her mind. But soon the two are making Thanksgiving dinner together.

Movies:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Neal Page (Steve Martin) wants to fly home to spend Thanksgiving with his family. Del Griffith (John Candy) leads Page on a hilarious, cross-country, wild goose chase that keeps him from tasting his turkey.

Home for the Holidays 

Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) is a divorced single mom who just lost her job and now has to fly home for the traditional family Thanksgiving in Baltimore. From the plane, she calls her brother Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.), who makes it down from Boston with a little surprise: a handsome friend named Leo. Between dropping the turkey in their sister's lap and a few fist fights on the front lawn, Claudia and Tommy recapture their childhood and Claudia and Leo explore the sweet possibility of romance.

Pieces of April 
Family outcast April (Katie Holmes) lives in a beat-up apartment in New York's Lower East Side with her boyfriend, Bobby. In order to spend some time with her dying mother, April invites her conservative suburban family to her place for a Thanksgiving feast. While she frantically tries to complete the meal, the family drives in from Pennsylvania sharing less-than-pleasant opinions about April's lifestyle. Her dad tries to think positively, while sister Beth flaunts her good-girl status and brother Timmy captures it all on film.

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving
Things are so bad for recently widowed farmer Mary Bassett and her three children that this Thanksgiving they may not even be able to afford a turkey for their dinner. Suddenly, Mary's wealthy and estranged mother Isabella (Jacqueline Bisset) comes for a visit.

The New World

Set amidst the first encounter of European and Native American cultures during the founding of the Jamestown settlement, this movie 

tells the classic tale of Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) and her relationship with adventurer John Smith (Colin Farrell).

The Blind Side
Michael Oher is a homeless African-American teenager who is from a broken home. Mike is taken in by the Touhys, a well-to-do white family who help him fulfill his potential.

K.I.S.S.I.N.G – Teen Love Stories, or Something Like That

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.

When seventeen-year-old Tana wakes up following a party in the aftermath of a violent vampire attack, she travels to Coldtown, a quarantined Massachusetts city full of vampires, with her ex-boyfriend and a mysterious vampire boy in tow.

Forever by Judy Blume. 

Two high school seniors believe their love to be so strong that it will last forever.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen. 

During her last summer at home before leaving for college, Emaline begins a whirlwind romance with Theo, an assistant documentary filmmaker who is in town to make a movie. 

The Pact: a love story by Jody Picoult. 

A teenage suicide pact between a pregnant girl and her boyfriend, both children of wealthy New England families. He shoots her, but fails to shoot himself and is charged with murder. At the trial he explains what made them do it.

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith. 

Perfect strangers Graham Larkin and Ellie O'Neill meet online when Graham accidentally sends Ellie an e-mail about his pet pig, Wilbur. The two 17-year-olds strike up an e-mail relationship from opposite sides of the country and don't even know each other's first names. What's more, Ellie doesn't know Graham is a famous actor, and Graham doesn't know about the big secret in Ellie's family tree. When the relationship goes from online to in-person, they find out whether their relationship can be the real thing.

-KF

Film Movement @ the Library

Join us Sunday, November 2nd @ 1:30 for a matinee screening of the moving 2011 South African film Lucky as we introduce our Glenviewings audience to the library's Film Movement subscription series.

Lucky is the story of a recently orphaned, 10-year old homeless South African boy. Over the grave of his dead mother, Lucky makes a promise to make something of himself. Leaving the security of his remote Zulu village for the big city with the hope of going to school, he arrives on the doorstep of an uncle who has no use for him. Lucky then falls in with Padma, an elderly Indian woman with an inherent fear of Africans, who takes him in as she would a stray dog. Together, unable to speak each other's language, they develop an unlikely bond. Through an odyssey marked by greed, violence, and, ultimately, belonging, Lucky shows how a child's spirit can bring out decency, humility and even love in adults struggling to survive in the new South Africa.

What is Film Movement?
Film Movement is a critically acclaimed award-winning independent distributer of foreign films. Film Movement has released films from 25 countries and six continents, including top prize winners from Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca and many other prestigious film festivals. Through partnerships with public libraries and other theatrical and online venues, Film Movement is able to get the films it distributes to the audiences they deserve.

From Film Movement’s Mission Statement:
Why did we launch Film Movement? As fans of independent and foreign cinema, we had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of access to the year's most critically acclaimed films. We kept reading about films from the major film festivals, such as Cannes and Sundance that A.O. Scott or Roger Ebert raved about, that would not be coming to a theater near you. Film choices are dictated to us by a smaller and smaller group of major studios, which decides to release films based mostly on their star quotient and "marketability." Many of the films that we want to see get squeezed out of theaters by Hollywood blockbusters and face skyrocketing marketing costs that make it daunting -- if not impossible -- to reach appreciative audiences.

We created Film Movement because the system of releasing independent, foreign and documentary films needed to be changed. We believed that the only way to change the system was to reach out to film fans directly.

At its heart, Film Movement is a grassroots direct-to-consumer company with a dedication to getting great films seen by as many people as possible, and providing intelligent, beautiful and compelling art to an ever-growing community of consumers who want more than the standard Hollywood fare.

Exploring Film Movement at Your Library
For a listing of Film Movement titles available at the Glenview Library, search the Library Catalog using the Keyword: Film Movement. New titles arrive on a montly basis. Stop by the AV Desk if you need assistance.

The View of a Veteran

With Veteran's Day approaching I thought to compile a list of titles that tell the stories of veterans or feature a veteran as a main character. They all have a story to tell even though the time and place may be different. If you like military war stories, or vets gone private eye, here is a short list of titles to celebrate and honor veterans.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

The Clause: Five Enemies, One Man, Zero Options by Brian Wiprud

The Five by Robert R. McCammon

The Child Thief by Dan Smith

The Bird Skinner by Alice Greenway

The Summer I Found You by Jolene B. Perry  

Great Books for Book Discussions

Each October The Women’s National Book Association selects books for their Great Group Reads list. This annual list always has wonderful titles to consider if you are seeking discussable books for your own book discussion group. The 20 Great Group Reads selections for 2014, all fiction this year, are featured below.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr  (2014)
Historical Fiction. "From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II." (448 pages)

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent  (2013)
Historical Fiction. An evocative tale of love and murder in early 19th century Iceland, this story is based on true events. In exquisite and haunting prose, the story of Agnes, convicted and awaiting execution while working on a remote farm, is gradually revealed. This is a multilayered and gripping story that illuminates a little known landscape and history. (256 pages)

Cataract City by Craig Davidson  (2013)
Realistic Fiction. Duncan Diggs and Owen Stuckey grew up on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in a gritty industrial town. Duncan become a boxer and small-time crook; Owen, a cop. When they meet again as adults, their childhood friendship brings them up against some hard choices in this propulsive story, reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates and Dennis Lehane. (398 pages)

Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani  (2013)
Political Fiction. The realities of living through post-revolutionary Iran are intensely portrayed across three decades and from various points of view. Vibrantly explored are the all-too-real themes of suffering, imprisonment, the deep emotional scars borne by the children, the burden of continuous upheaval, but also the ultimate hope of a culture that is still full of poetry and beauty. (288 pages)

The Commandant of Lubizec by Patrick Hicks  (2014)
Historical Fiction. A harrowing tale that explores the mind of the commandant at a Nazi death camp and how he compartmentalized his life: murdering thousands by day and going home to kiss his wife and laugh with his children. A brutal story of survival and guilt, it illustrates Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil". (240 pages)

Euphoria by Lily King  (2014)
Historical Fiction. Set in 1930s New Guinea and inspired by the life of Margaret Mead, the story follows three anthropologists caught in a love triangle. As they study the artistic, female-dominated Tam tribe, their lives spin out of control. This is a captivating story of desire, possession, exploration and sacrifice. (368 pages)

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng  (2014)
Psychological Fiction. "Lydia is dead" runs the first line of the novel. From there, Ng weaves a devastatingly adept story of a mixed race American family in the late 1970s, exploring themes of family secrets, identity, gender perspectives and race. This profound family portrait is also a riveting page-turner. (304 pages)

Foreign Gods, INC. by Okey Ndibe  (2014)
Immigrant Fiction. The American Dream is recast from the perspective of a Nigerian immigrant, Ike, who despairs of success but still seethes with ambition to the extent of traveling back to his homeland to steal a religious statue. Brilliant and unforgettable, full of sly humor and pathos, Okey Ndibe's tale offers up an insider's biting view of both America and Nigeria. (336 pages)

Marching to Zion by Mary Glickman  (2013)
Historical Fiction. This dramatic and tumultuous story of interracial love and the struggles of African Americans and Jewish Americans against prejudice and economic depression in America's heartland takes place over a period of 20 pivotal years from 1916 to 1936, in St. Louis and Memphis. Race riots, tragedy, betrayal and forbidden love are explored in this fast-paced novel. (247 pages)

Neverhome by Laird Hunt  (2014)
Historical Fiction. Based on the lives of women who disguised themselves as men during the Civil War, this tale follows Ash, a farmer's wife, who abandons a conventional life to fight for the Union cause. Fearless and an excellent marksman, Ash lives a precarious life as a soldier, with betrayal always a breath away. It is a fascinating story of identity and reinvention with a vivid historical setting. (224 pages)

The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis  (2014)
Literary Fiction. The lives of two children who come together through an horrific event in Provincetown, Massachusetts, are explored in alternating voices over 30 years, covering the themes of faith, betrayal, family secrets, and violence. Atmospheric and passionate, the culture of the Massachusetts coastline and its Portuguese heritage are richly depicted. (336 pages)

Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks  (2014)
Literary Fiction. Archaeologist Catherine Lemay arrives in Montana in the 1950s to find out if historical artifacts will be lost in the flooded lands resulting from the construction of a dam. She opens her heart to the wild and magnificent landscape as it is revealed to her by John H, a former mustanger and recluse. Elegantly written, it is a love song to a vanishing way of life that raises many topics for discussion: the treatment of Native Americans, the politics of big corporations, preservation of the past, and the role of women post-WWII. (336 pages)

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement  (2014)
Literary Fiction. The harsh, desolate landscape of a Mexican region owned entirely by drug lords has forced women to hide their girls in the ground and make them 'ugly' so they will not be stolen away. Is there any hope for Ladydi, a young girl who dreams of a better life? This poetical, enchanting, and disturbing portrait of a strange and foreign world right in our midst is powerful, redemptive, and unforgettable. (224 pages)

The Promise by Ann Weisgarber  (2014)
Historical Fiction. In 1900, Catherine, a talented pianist who tried but failed to establish an independent life, finds herself in such a desperate situation, that she agrees to marry an acquaintance, now a widower and rancher in Galveston, Texas. She arrives there to make a life under primitive conditions, and is put to a harsh text--the massive hurricane which would prove to be the deadliest disaster in 20th century America. (304 pages)

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion  (2013)
Romantic Comedy. Don Tillman, a socially-challenged genetics professor who has never been on a second date, sets out to find the ideal wife with a 16-page questionnaire. Enter Rosie Jarman, who doesn't quite fit the profile, but as Don is drawn into Rosie's project to find her biological father, an unlikely relationship develops. In this delightful, feel-good novel, Don and Rosie finally draw the unscientific conclusion that sometimes you don't find love, it finds you. (329 pages)

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin  (2014)
Realistic Fiction. Recently widowed A.J. Fikry has problems: his bookstore is failing, he’s drinking too much, and his rare collection of Edgar Allen Poe’s poems has been stolen. The arrival of a mysterious package brings A.J. an opportunity to make his life over and see everything with new eyes. This is a delightful story of transformation, second chances and above all the power of love. (320 pages)

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay  (2014)
Psychological Fiction. Mireille Jameson returns to Haiti to visit her wealthy parents, but the happy reunion is shattered when she is kidnapped by a gang of armed men and her father refuses to pay the ransom they demand. Gay keeps the reader glued to the page with her harrowing, suspenseful, and graphically violent story about identity, guilt and the obligations we owe our loved ones. (368 pages)

What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins  (2014)
Historical Fiction. Fifty years before Helen Keller, Laura Bridgman was the first American deaf-blind child to acquire language and with that, great celebrity. Set amidst the chaotic beginnings of 19-century social reform and experimentation, this poignant novel tells Laura’s story, alternating her convincing voice with that of her calculating mentor, Dr. Samuel Howe, his poet wife, Julie Ward Howe, and Laura’s beloved teacher. (352 pages)

Where Somebody Waits by Margaret Kaufman  (2013)
Love Stories. Tall, red-haired Ruby Davidson lives her life in small-town Arkansas, and the reader follows her voice in vignettes over 60 years, as she falls in love, marries into a southern Jewish family, encounters small and large dramas, and carries on with courage and spirit. This story transports the reader directly into the South of the 1940s and 1950s. (200 pages)

The World of Rae English by Lucy Rosenthal  (2013)
Realistic Fiction. Rae English, a smart yet conflicted young woman has secrets. Set in the strait-laced early sixties when women were supposed to be married and pretty, she finds herself divorced from a disgraced politician. Hoping to conceal herself as a writer and rediscover love, she leaves New York and relocates to Iowa City. Book groups will have much to discuss on the themes of abandonment, holding secrets and letting go. (246 pages)