Our theatrical stages are filling up, with a host of offerings from the contemporary and politically volatile (The Rep’s Disgraced or Renaissance Theaterworks’ Luna Gale) to the sweetly nostalgic (The Rep’s McGuire). There are more productions coming in early February (Skylight’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and Next Act’s The Other Place), but it’s a “Mostly Music” week immediately ahead.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra ends its knockout month of guest conductors and spectacular symphonies with a program that spans several decades and musical styles. Israeli conductor Asher Fisch is an opera veteran, so it’s no surprise to see Richard Wagner’s gorgeous song cycle, Wesendonck-Lieder, on the program, featuring soprano Tamara Wilson. Fisch also includes Tchaikovsky’s tempestuous Fourth Symphony and—for a bit of respite from hyperromanticism, Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1.
If last Monday’s Frankly Music’s program got you in the mood for woodwinds, there is more to hear at Milwaukee Musiak’s concert, which features music by Beethoven contemporary Franz Krommer, modernist Paul Hindemith and that old favorite, Antonín Dvořák.
The Florentine Opera’s Studio Artists offer a late-ish holiday gift with Florentine by Request, a program of music requested by Florentine audiences. See if one of your favorites is on the roster.
And the “music” of poetry gets its due at Woodland Pattern Book Center’s 23rd annual Poetry Marathon and Benefit, 15 hours of readings by local writers who want to support this essential cultural institution. Come hear work by Susan Firer, Brenda Cardenas, John Koethe, along with some of your friends and neighbors as they share their latest pieces of word-smithy.
