7:00 p.m., Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10 more ›

Just in case any of you think where we stand on the game Sunday, let's allow the Lyric Opera's Bryan Griffin the final word as we get out of here to start planning for the feast we've got planned for the folks coming over to our home to watch the game Sunday. more ›

The show, as they say, will go on as the Lyric Opera and its musician negotiated a deal that will avoid a threatened strike and allow tomorrow night's opening of "The Merry Widow" to carry on as scheduled. The 76-member orchestra had been performing without a contract since the new season began in September. Per the Sun-Times: more ›

Orchestra members of the Lyric Opera opened the season on Saturday with a performance of Puccini's "Tosca" without a contract, Chicago Breaking News reports. more ›

Starting Monday, Lyric’s 13th annual Opera in the Neighborhoods program will kick off once again, bringing kiddie-friendly opera directly to young students throughout the Chicagoland area. This year’s program will present a version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, staging approximately 30 performances at different local schools and auditoriums through the beginning of November. more ›

If you are already drawing crowds to your venue for longish evening performances, you might as well capitalize on that fact by running some kind of restaurant or eatery directly nearby. Examples: the Rhapsody Restaurant inside the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Symphony Center” complex, or the revenue-generating shenanigans of the Park Grill in Millennium Park. more ›

Looking forward The Chicago Chamber Musicians are giving it away today and all first Mondays through August 2008 at the Chicago Cultural Center, a series of monthly free concerts kicking off with Eric Ewazen's Trio in E-Flat and Alexander Arutunian's Trumpet Concerto in A-Flat Major. Caro d’Offay Gallery invites contributions from aspiring and established sculptors for Colorist Chess, an interactive exhibition linking imaginative writing and creative imagery. Artists — established, aspiring, and otherwise — are... more ›

$40 million buys a nice view. The Children's Museum discourse just got even more ridiculous: Ald. Brendan Reilly said he'd consider putting the museum in a cave. Three fires, all in 7901 S. Paxton Ave.? Not surprisingly, the police suspect arson. Blagojevich and Madigan ... can those crazy kids ever work it out? The union that represents the singers, dancers, actors and production personnel at the Lyric Opera says it might strike. image by... more ›

Here’s what you missed while you were sneezing and burning: Guest #18, your comments are hilarious, but how do you fare with a live audience? If you think you’ve got the chops, submit a 1-2 minute video to Time Out Chicago by September 20. Best entries will be screened online for their discerning website visitors. The top four will compete live for the chance to be crowned “Chicago’s Funniest Person.” (... at least according to... more ›

Usually, the divide between the sports community and the arts community is about as wide as Lake Michigan. You're about as likely to find some Chad wearing his Illini cap in Symphony Hall as you are to find an Art Institute board member watching a game at John Barleycorn's. Until the Bears make the Super Bowl, that is — that's enough to bring everyone together. Across the city, we find evidence of arts and sports... more ›

"Sunrise-Sears" via bweb04. more ›

Everyone's heard now, the guy who ran over the cabbie with his own cab - he got 15 years in prison. Hey, Quinn, way to piss off the Post Office with your tea bag protest! John Ronan wants to turn the old abandoned post office in the Loop into the largest municipal cemetery in the world. Lyric Opera Radio. "Sculpting" via Blank Campbell. The Photographer notes that the description of the sculpture explained that... more ›

TECH NOTE: We're not trying to silence you today or anything, we're having technical difficulties that are causing comments to not work across the entire Gothamist Network. Hopefully this will be resolved by later tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. This week's CTA news: US Cellular customers can make cell phone calls on the trains, everyone can make 911 calls, and we're now able to track buses to try to figure out why... more ›

Butch McGuire, who founded one of America's first singles bars and named it after himself, has passed away. More hazing suspensions at Northwestern. This time it's the men's swim team and students who perform as the school's mascot who are in trouble. Sam's Wine has to pay $300k in an extortion claim. A stretch along Wacker on the river will be opening next month. It's getting fancied up with $800,000 worth of pavement, fencing,... more ›

Some arty-farty Chicago stories we’ve been checking out on the internets today: * The National Endowment for the arts awarded $1.1 million in grants to various people, places and things that make life worth living in Illinois. Recipients include some Chicago heavyweights like the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as the Mexican Fine Arts Center and Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice. To our mind, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra Association is putting... more ›

• A fluke in scoring caused more than 4,000 5th graders to flunk the state reading test last spring.
• A girl in FL was hurt after falling from a carnival ride run by a Chicago-area company. This is the latest in a string of accidents by the company, including one last summer where a little boy died.
• Need a job? Are you a tumbling midget or willing to go topless? Apply at the Lyric Opera.

There’s probably no such thing as bad publicity for a guy who promises “I'll murder you and come at you again in the afterlife” but Chicago speed-rapper Twista’s been having a relatively tough month. Last week as Twista was participating in the city’s Principal For A Day program, local resident David L. Wideman was protesting the West Side rapper’s participation and even threw up a circa-1995 style website to voice his concerns (via Gaper’s). Wideman’s... more ›

This week’s New City cover story “Music 45: Who Rocks Chicago” features 45 artists, talent bookers, and executives who rock Chicago. Though the awkward punctuation had us scratching our heads for a while, that was nothing compared with how we got our dander up over the list itself. Trust us: things get ugly when our dander is in the up position. more ›

And here we thought Chicago’s murder rate was dropping. more ›

Snow snow snow. Everybody’s cancelling plans and freaking out about the alleged “incoming snow” scheduled to income tonight/tomorrow/etc. Use extreme caution when traveling, they say. Stay home if at all possible, they say. more ›

» Rick Bayless v. Bobby Flay Iron Chef America more ›

Hmmm…are there troubled times ahead for the Lyric Opera? more ›

World premieres run amok in Chicago this week, with Sunday’s kick-off of the never-fully-produced Tennessee Williams play "One Arm" at Steppenwolf and the upcoming debut of director Robert Altman’s "A Wedding" at the Lyric Opera. more ›

Opera fans and diva fanatics rejoice: megastar Renée Fleming is scheduled to land for a meet, greet & dine on Monday, Dec. 13, at the Union League Club. Sponsored by the ULC Authors Group, America’s Favorite Soprano (we trust Ohio didn’t tally the votes on that one) will be on hand to promote her new autobiography “The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer.” (We’d like to subtitle that subtitle with “And She’s Not Kidding”; this slim volume is deep on technique and way shallow on tantrums. You’ll have to try the new Pavarotti bio for bad behavior and backstage dirt.) more ›

Aida more ›

Chicagoist is feeling all crafty today; it's rainy and crappy out and a hot glue gun and a sewing machine are our only tickets to happiness. Sigh. Well, perhaps we could cheer ourselves up with a little shuh-shuh-shuh-shopping? Crafy shopping? Judges? Judges rule…yes! more ›

In 1954 the Lyric Opera began with a production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni." So it's only appropriate that the company opened its 50th season on Saturday night by revisiting the tragicomic tale of Don Juan. more ›