Free Opera Friday

By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 10, 2009 4:40PM

If you're jonesing for some opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago is your enabler. Maybe you can wait until the season preview concert on September 21. Maybe you can even hold out until the opening night gala on September 26. But if you need a taste of that sweet, sweet opera - and don't have the do-re-mi to be a subscriber (one of the requirements for the exclusive preview) or to afford a ticket to the premiere (still available for $260-$400) - then go to Millennium Park this Friday night when Lyric will be giving away the goods for free.

The concert will consist of excerpts from several operas, including a few - Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca," Charles Gounod's "Faust," and Giuseppe Verdi's "Ernani" - that will be performed this season. Other operas featured will be Gioachino Rossini's "Semiramide" and "The Barber of Seville," Gaetano Donizetti's "La fille du régiment," Verdi's "Otello," Puccini's "La bohème," Antonín Dvořák's "Rusalka," Jacques Offenbach's "Les contes d’Hoffmann," Richard Wagner's "Tannhäuser," and Georges Bizet's "L’arlesienne" Suite and, of course, "Carmen." The music will be performed by Sir Andrew Davis and Lyric Opera Orchestra, with vocal soloists from both the upcoming season and the Lyric's apprenticeship program, the Ryan Opera Center.

Opera addicts will be there in droves, but this concert is also easily digestible for those interested in experimenting. Just beware: this first one's free, but then you'll have to pay.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Friday, September 11, at 7:30 p.m., FREE