Conquering Everest and Aleko: Chicago Opera Theater's bold study of contrasts

Daniel Catán's operatic adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of evil scientist and poisoned plants is compellingly set in Chicago's Field Museum.

“Love conquers all.” Too often this phrase has been repeated, yet too true this statement has proven. Rather than just being a passionate emotion in which desires of the world and flesh prevail, true love is a genuine feeling which trials or extreme evil cannot break, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Beautifully prepared singing and playing brings out the tender side to Berg's modernist classic as part of the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival. 

Some 30 years after its first appearance, Robert Lepage’s double bill of Duke Bluebeards Castle and Erwartung is still strikingly effective and very modern-looking music theatre.