Latest news with #Faust
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Iconic windmill along I-80 comes down
Good afternoon, Chicago. Illinois lawmakers grappling with uncertainty over Trump administration spending cuts tucked a handful of tools aimed at maintaining key programs into the budget package signed by Gov. JB Pritzker earlier this week, including a flexible fund of $100 million the governor can use to cover gaps left by unrealized federal funding. 'The magnitude and volume of problems that Trump and his administration are creating is something that no state has ever dealt with before. So it will have limited use,' Andy Manar, deputy governor on budget issues, said of the $100 million fund. 'But it will serve a very strategic role.' Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History The motel had long been a south suburban sore spot, a no-tell motel with stays available in four-hour increments that often ended badly. Read more here. More top news stories: Blue Island's former MetroSouth hospital served as a warning of what could happen if President Donald Trump's big bill aimed at slashing federal spending and extending tax cuts becomes law, elected officials and health care workers said. Read more here. More top business stories: The former Chicago Cubs outfielder will return to Wrigley Field today for the first time since his controversial exit in 2004, after reuniting with the organization in January at the Cubs Convention. Read more here. More top sports stories: Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and tenor John Osborn were both cast for the originally planned 'Faust,' but you'd think they were hand-picked specifically for this repertoire. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: President Donald Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. . Read more here. More top stories from around the world:
Chicago Tribune
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Muti returns to the CSO, principal trumpeter and Verdi's Requiem in tow
For a time, Chicago Symphony music director emeritus Riccardo Muti planned to end the 2024/25 downtown season with Hector Berlioz's 'The Damnation of Faust,' not heard at Orchestra Hall since 2008. But last summer, the CSO announced the Berlioz would be swapped out with a more recent throwback: Verdi's Requiem, which Muti last led in Chicago in 2018. A signature of Muti's tenure here, the Requiem was performed and recorded to wide acclaim, first through a Grammy-winning 2010 album and again via livestream in 2013, back when that technology was relatively novel. Despite missing out on a rare-going-on-rarer 'Faust,' the Muti/Requiem pairing is as sure a thing as they come. Thursday's concert was no exception, clinching a standout performance of the year with a quartet of superbly cast — and superbly matched — vocal soloists, three of whom were making their CSO debuts. Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and tenor John Osborn were both cast for the originally planned 'Faust,' but you'd think they were hand-picked specifically for this repertoire. Crebassa didn't just sing the mezzo part — she seemed to live it, from the throaty intensity of 'Liber scriptus' to a grief-stricken 'Lacrymosa,' her vibrato bubbling like tears. Her jewel-toned voice sat well in Verdi's lower vocal writing, but it also easily winged skyward when called for, like a glittering upward climb in 'Quid sum miser.' Crebassa has not sung at the CSO since 2015, at Esa-Pekka Salonen's invitation; her next visit ought to come far sooner. Osborn was every bit as sensitive, living proof that one doesn't need to muscle through this writing to captivate a hall. Between his dynamic and emotional range, and an uncommon transparency of tone — the top of 'Quid sum miser' would have given most sopranos a run for their money in its diamond-bright purity — his every feature cut straight to the heart. Elena Guseva's soprano staggers in its power and control, retaining its hue even at lofty peaks. But much like her colleagues, the soprano was even more astonishing in moments of balance and introversion, like her spick-and-span octaves with Crebassa in 'Agnus Dei' and the tender sendoffs to 'Domine Jesu Christe' and 'Libera me.' The young bass-baritone Maharram Huseynov stepped in last week for Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, also originally a 'Faust' hire. Where many before him have brought big-boned heft to this role — which might have helped Huseynov when he got swallowed by the orchestra's fire in the 'Confutatis' — I'm not convinced that's the point. Huseynov's lighter touch felt closer to the spirit of the text, his voice toned, vulnerable and sympathetically, grippingly human-sized. These performances mark Donald Palumbo's official debut as the new director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. It was an auspicious first outing, the choir sounding sculpted and notably unified in color and timbre. Basses rumbled in the 'Rex tremendae' like a voice from a fissure in the earth; sopranos entered on the final 'Libera me' canon with the precision of a single singer. Any ensemble issues mostly came from disagreement between the orchestra and the chorus. The chorus floated around the beat in the first 'Dies irae.' The 'Sanctus' was the opposite: they followed Muti's more leisurely tempo like a shadow, despite the orchestra itching to default to the sprightly pace of years' past. But these moments were few and brief in an inspired, brilliantly paced Requiem, its orchestral contributions sounding fresher than ever. Violins supported the 'Kyrie' crisply; later, Vadim Karpinos' timpani licked like flame in the 'Dies irae.' Onstage and offstage trumpet quartets drove a terrifying transition into the 'Tuba mirum.' And when Guseva and the chorus sang that 'the earth shall be shaken' in the 'Libera me,' a mighty rumble in the double basses made sure you really believed it. Elsewhere, Muti halted the action with moments of total silence, all to great, hair-raising effect. Deliverance, indeed. A week earlier, also under Muti's baton, principal trumpet Esteban Batallán — returning to the ensemble this fall after a season with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a summer parental leave — made his CSO solo debut on two 18th century concertos for piccolo trumpet, by Georg Philipp Telemann and Joseph Haydn's overlooked brother, Michael. The repertoire frequently played to Batallán's strong points. Both — especially the Michael Haydn concerto and its virtuosic cadenzas, devised by Batallán himself — gave the trumpeter a chance to show off his dazzling upper register. And for all his sheer power behind the horn, Batallán can certainly scale back when called for, balancing chamber-style against the ensemble throughout. Mostly missing, at least on June 12, was a certain sense of phrase and direction in legato sections. From the slow movements of the Telemann to floating refrains in the Haydn, notes felt over-articulated rather than part of a longer line. The CSO sound under Muti is nothing if not refined — everything shapely and in its place, never crass nor unruly. That made for an elegant yet reliable accompaniment in these concertos. But once the orchestra became the main focus for Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 48, 'Maria Theresa,' and Schubert's Symphony No. 4, 'Tragic,' that refinement sounded more like reticence. The stormy fake-out in the Haydn's first movement sounded defanged, and the finale rather polite. The Schubert was even more reined in, the orchestra clean but sounding like it was playing at half-verve. The overall impression was one of an ensemble walking on eggshells: little spark, little levity, little variety, too much weighty reverence. That's not to discount some fine ensemble work. Woodwind contributions in the Schubert from clarinetist Stephen Williamson, oboist William Welter, and outgoing flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson were both impassioned and lucid. Mark Almond, sitting in the hot seat for the Haydn symphony's diabolically high horn part, wasn't always pristine, but he deserves serious kudos for deftly balancing the stratospheric register of his accompaniment so it dusted the harmonies instead of dominating them — all too easy to do. 'Muti Conducts Verdi Requiem' repeats 7:30 p.m. June 20-24 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets starting at $79,
CBS News
19 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Brooklyn Park hosts healing event in wake of deadly lawmaker shooting, break-in
Neighbors of slain lawmaker looking to regain sense of safety Neighbors of slain lawmaker looking to regain sense of safety Neighbors of slain lawmaker looking to regain sense of safety Healing is the next focus for Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, residents. After Saturday's assassination and attacks, the city held an event to help residents do just that. "We just still can't believe that it happened. We just want to get some peace back," resident Tammy Poquet said. Poquet and her daughter were two of many Brooklyn Park residents who attended the city's healing event on Thursday, hearing from the police department first-hand. "If somebody's pounding at your door, ask to see their badge," said Inspector Elliot Faust of the Brooklyn Park Police Department. "You can call 911 and ask the dispatcher, 'I've got somebody knocking on my door and I want to verify that.'" City leaders also spoke at the event. "Whatever you say sets the tone for what those families, the Hortmans and Hoffmans, and their friends may hear," Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies Winston said. Fencing now surrounds the Hortmans' Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, home after a break-in overnight Wednesday. WCCO People who attended the event also had questions answered, like whether Vance Boelter was "working alone" or not. "There is no evidence to show there is a larger scheme at play here," Faust said. The meeting comes after the Hortmans' home was burglarized overnight on Wednesday. Neighbors now walk past a new fence surrounding their home that has been installed since the break-in. "We're working hard to get to the bottom of that," Faust said. But for people like Chris H., who says the Hortmans were his neighborhood friends, the citizens know they'll persevere. Attendees praised law enforcement for their swift actions during the attack.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Dara Birnbaum, 78, dies; video was her medium and her message
The six-minute piece that resulted, 'Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,' begins with 11 straight explosions, followed by Lynda Carter spinning in circles under more explosions as she transforms into the Amazon superhero of the show's title. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It was a simple change, but a profound one. By stripping these effects from their ordinary fairy-tale context, Ms. Birnbaum made it easier to see the violence and sexual objectification they transmitted along with their nominal story. Perhaps more important, she also demonstrated -- to a whole cohort of later artists, including Cory Arcangel and Martine Syms -- that mass media was fair game as artistic material and that its power could, if only temporarily or in principle, be turned against itself. Advertisement Ms. Birnbaum died in a hospital in New York City on May 2. She was 78. Her brother and only immediate survivor, Robert Birnbaum, a physician scientist, said the cause was metastatic endometrial cancer. Advertisement Ms. Birnbaum also made more introspective work, like the three-part video series 'Damnation of Faust,' a haunting meditation on the Faust myth shot in Lower Manhattan, as well as elegantly designed installations to house her videos and inventive drawings. But she never lost her interest in the moving image, or in coercion and control -- though those interests converged in different ways as her work became less focused on the dangers of video than on its potential to reveal other dangers. Her 1990 piece 'Tiananmen Square: Break-In Transmission' used found footage and a claustrophobic installation of multiple monitors to consider both the previous year's protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and the Chinese government's suppression of information about them. The six-channel installation 'Psalm 29(30),' made after Ms. Birnbaum had recovered from a grave illness in 2014, juxtaposed views of Lake Como in Italy, shot while she was a resident at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center there, with images of the Syrian civil war. Dara Nan Birnbaum was born in New York City on Oct. 29, 1946, to Mary (Sochotliff) Birnbaum, a medical technician turned homemaker, and Philip Birnbaum, a prolific architect of residential buildings known for the efficiency of his apartment layouts. After graduating early from Forest Hills High School in Queens, Ms. Birnbaum enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh as a premed student, but she switched to architecture. After earning her bachelor's degree in 1969, she moved to San Francisco to work for Lawrence Halprin & Associates; when the oil crisis hit and business slowed, she enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute, where she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1973. Advertisement In 1974, she moved to Florence, Italy, where she took classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti -- and had an encounter that changed her life. Stopping one night to look at a pair of lithographs in the windows of a gallery called Centro Diffusione Grafica (later known as art/tapes/22), she noticed a group of people in the back, huddled around a television set. When they beckoned her to join them, she found that they were watching neither the news nor a soap opera but a video art piece by Allan Kaprow. Through the gallery, she met artist Vito Acconci and others. With their encouragement, she returned to New York and its vibrant art scene, though not specifically to its galleries. 'I initially avoided galleries like the plague,' she told Arcangel when he interviewed her for Artforum in 2009. 'I didn't want to translate popular imagery from television and film into painting and photography. I wanted to use video on video; I wanted to use television on television.' Her earliest video works were philosophically tinged experiments with the medium like the black-and-white 'Mirroring' (1975), in which Ms. Birnbaum, captured in front of a dull gray backdrop, seems to go in and out of focus as she approaches the camera. In fact, the camera is trained on a mirror, as is revealed when the artist doubles herself by slipping in front of the lens. But by 1978, she had begun to work with appropriated material -- first with an installation featuring footage from 'Laverne & Shirley,' then in 'Technology/Transformation' and later with images borrowed from 'Hollywood Squares' and, in 'PM Magazine,' a mashup of entertainment news and commercials for Wang computers. Advertisement Within a few years, she was showing at galleries, museums and film festivals worldwide. She would eventually have retrospectives in Tokyo; Milan; Vienna; Porto, Portugal; and Ghent, Belgium. In 2017, Carnegie Mellon's School of Art created the Birnbaum Award in her honor. Of all her edits and remixes, Ms. Birnbaum's most subversive response to mass media may have been simply to turn down its volume. 'Everything seems to be changing and failing and falling out from under us,' she told curator Lauren Cornell in a 2016 ARTnews interview. 'So a kind of numbness has developed, and that's why some art attempts to yell so hard at its viewers. But if one comes from a place of solemnity and from a whisper, in a society that's constantly yelling, maybe it's a strong whisper that can best be heard and then matched with full integrity.' This article originally appeared in
Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Wisconsin dairy farmer sues Trump administration claiming discrimination against white farmers
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities. The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust. Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA's Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan. The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs. 'The USDA should honor the President's promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,' Faust said in a written statement. 'After being ignored by a federal agency that's meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.' Trump administration spokesperson Anna Kelly did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment. John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, said the lawsuit is 'frustrating for me personally and as the leader of this movement.' 'The farmers that are hurting now are clearly the Black farmers out here,' he said. 'You can couch it any way you want.' The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA. The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex. Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay. Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges. Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends. A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to 'socially disadvantaged farmers' amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program and Congress repealed it in 2022. The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn't want to sue 'but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.' Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government's DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.
