Critic’s Choice

Tue May 17, 2016 at 3:17 pm

By Lawrence A. Johnson

Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Lang Lang may be the marquee bait this week for his one-night-only Chicago Symphony Orchestra appearance performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on Saturday.

But the otherwise substantially Stravinsky program is a clear first choice in its own right. Charles Dutoit is among our finest Stravinsky hands and the nicely balanced lineup offers the CSO-commissioned Symphony in C with Fireworks and the complete Firebird ballet. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday, 1:30 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday (where the Prokofiev concerto will replace the symphony). cso.org; 312-294-3000.

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Apart from Chicago Opera Theater, American opera continues to be treated with benign neglect on the local scene. So kudos to Chicago Fringe Opera for bringing local audiences a new staging of Philip Glass’s In the Penal Colony. Glass’s intimate adaptation of Franz Kafka’s bleak short story stars Matthan Ring Black and Zachary Vandenburg. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Lillstreet Art Center, 4401 N. Ravenswood. chicagofringeopera.com

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