Studs Terkel was committed to evolving, expanding, and interrogating our conception of who made up the US.

Dates for future productions, as well as additional creative team members and cast, will be announced in 2023.

“We’re celebrating the spirit of the city and taking a moment for some musical civic pride!”

The new company launches with fully staged works by Puccini and Wolf-Ferrari, plus a concert inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

WFMT sits down with the two writers of The Final Symphony: A Beethoven Anthology, a comic book collection inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven.

From The Nutcracker to Don Quixote be the first to learn about what the Joffrey Ballet’s next season has in store!

WFMT host Candice Agree has selected some of her favorite works of literature that have inspired musical compositions for you to enjoy on World Book Day.

Ernest Hemingway was, by his own account, “absolutely without talent” when it came to music, but his influential writing and extraordinary life have inspired many film and TV composers.

Our picture of the past is often incomplete: though long on the frontlines in the fight for racial justice, women’s stories have often been left out of history. Here are nine conversations with women to enrich our understanding.

General director Ashley Magnus maintains that even in troubled times, the company is “moving forward with the belief that opera truly is a living, resilient art form.”

Throughout his 52 years at WFMT, Studs Terkel showcased and championed poets from across the globe.

As an outsized figure in literature and poetry, Poe has inspired composers like Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Philip Glass, and composer-conductor Leonard Slatkin, who set Poe’s “The Raven” to music in 1971.

We’re glad to see that in recent decades, more and more works by women writers have been given their due in the opera house. Here’s a look back at some of them, and a short list of works by women that we’re waiting to see operatically staged.

To conceal that the book’s author was a woman, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under a pen name. Choreographer Cathy Marston feels the book was revolutionary: “It truly was groundbreaking for a woman to write about her emotions and station in life with such honesty.”

Despite Maestro Muti’s tireless activity in the musical realm, he has not neglected the written word.

Moby-Dick is a Great American Novel, no doubt. But that fact doesn’t make Herman Melville’s 600+ page opus any less intimidating.

“I believe that Karenina is a magical moment of looking at our beautiful art form and taking it a step forward,” says Ashley Wheater, Joffrey Ballet’s artistic director. One of the cornerstones of the production is 35-year-old composer Ilya Demutsky’s brand new, full-length orchestral score, the first such commission in Joffrey’s 62-year history.

Renée Baker’s interest in Baldwin began when she first heard recordings of his voice. “The person that I’d only accessed from books became quite real once I was able to actually hear and listen to him speak.” She notes.

The season features four Chicago premieres and the return of two reimagined staples.

If you’re looking for quick summer reads to add to your list, give these music-themed short stories a try, with everything from Anton (Chekhov) to Zora (Neale Hurston). The best part: they’re all available for free online!

If “Music oft hath such a charm / To make bad good, and good provoke to harm,” perhaps these 10 Shakespeare-inspired operas will charm you.

Author and activist Maya Angelou is best for her autobiographical memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But have you heard Angelou sing?

Pulitzer-winning composer Paul Moravec: “A supernatural story makes total sense for an opera…”

“Opera is deeply satisfying in a way that Shakespeare cannot be,” stage director Barlett Sher said backstage at Lyric Opera of Chicago during rehearsals for Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.

We spoke with the Chicago theater institution’s founder and artistic director about the music that inspires her.