Displaying items by tag: Alfreda Burke

It’s not too early to mark out January 11 and 12 and reserve tickets for a “Too Hot to Handle,” a unique holiday event to be staged at the Auditorium Theatre. For 17 years, Chicagoans have reveled in the glory of this dramatic adaptation of Handel, what reviewers describe as an “exuberant, jazz-gospel makeover” of the baroque master’s classic “Messiah.”

That doesn’t begin to describe it, rooted in Handel’s surpassingly beautiful work, from which it launches into exuberant explorations of Handel’s intent conveyed in jazz, blues, scat, ragtime, and other musical modalities from Black American culture. Originated by Marin Alsop nearly hree decades ago, it is both freeform and grounded, and I have not heard its power captured in recordings or videos—you have to be there.

Ordinarily performed sometime close to Mr. Luther King Day, this moving performance features world-class musicians filling the Auditorium’s historic stage with a chamber orchestra, jazz combo, a huge choir, and two gifted operatic soloists—soprano Alfreda Burke, and tenor Rodrick Dixon (both with well-regarded classic repertoires); along with chanteuse Karen-Marie Richardson, a Chicago-based alto (currently appearing Off Broadway in “Sleep No More” through September 29 .

Late last month, members of the company gathered atAmazing Space for a celebratory launch event to position the next rendition, with Dixon and Burke accompanied by another essential to “Too Hot to Handel,” pianist Alvin Waddles. There the announcement of a new addition was made: the appointment of George Stelluto as musical director and conductor going forward. Stelluto conducted the “Too Hot to Handel” performance with the Peoria Symphony in December, and has made conducting appearances at the Ravinia Festival, and with the Atlanta, San Diego and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras, among many other engagements in the U.S. and internationally.

“Too Hot to Handel” comes highly recommended, with a word of advice: book your tickets now so you don’t miss a one of a kind event January 11 and 12, 2025.

‘Too Hot to Handel’ captures all the majesty of Handel’s baroque music masterpiece, but adds soul, infusing it with the power of equally classic jazz, gospel and blues interpretations. This annual tradition - it ran December 3-4 this year - was launched in 1992, and was first performed at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre two decades ago, where it returns for two performances each year. It never fails to surprise and delight—so much so this reviewer has seen it six times.

By reinterpreting portions of the classic work with treatments that include varieties of jazz, along with gospel, backbeats, and scat, “Too Hot to Handel” amplifies and highlights Handel's 1741 score. Purists may be tempted to scoff at any meddling with the original, but there are actually many variations in the canon, such as tempo, instrumentation (modern and original instruments), etc.

It is no accident that numerous jazz masters from Keith Jarett to Herbie Hancock move with fluidity between jazz and baroque musical forms. “Too Hot to Handel” shows why. It allows both performers and the audience to respond emotionally to Handel’s inspirational original through the free forms of modern music, relinquishing the intensive restraint imposed by baroque.

Perhaps chief among the numerous powerful performances is that of Rodrick Dickson, an opera star of international renown. His clarion tenor all alone equals in force and magnitude the combined power of the chamber orchestra, jazz combo, and symphonic choirs against which he performs. Dickson’s delivery of “Comfort Ye,” “For He is Like a Refiners Fire” and other sections, carries everything Handel had to have intended for it, and then amps it up with the departures from the work.

Likewise opera soprano Alfreda Burke, whose role hews tighter to Handel’s score, carrying it with clarity and power against the driving backdrop of a swinging orchestra and chorus. An accomplished principal in major productions of Puccini, Poulenc, Beethoven and many others around the world, Burke’s voluptuous voice delights in “There Were Shepherds Abiding in the Field.”

Then there is Karen-Marie Richardson, mezzo-soprano, bringing unabashedly jazz delivery to “Oh Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion” and other sections with a style that contrasts distinctly from Burke and Dickson, and yet is equally as affecting.

There is much more to say about “Too Hot to Handel,” most importantly the tour de force performance by Detroit pianist Alvin Waddles, who at one point must improvise through 18 bars; the sheet music is simply blank, and he runs with it. And each year it seems another star performance emerges, which without question was principal saxophonist Greg Ward, whose stand-up solos were emotionally intense reveries on whatever had preceded them.

Created in 1992 as a collaboration between conductor Marin Alsop with orchestrators and arrangers Bob Christianson and Gary Anderson, “Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz-Gospel Messiah” had its Chicago premiere at the Auditorium Theatre in 2006. The production has returned every year since, formerly during the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This year, Too Hot to Handel landed right in the middle of the traditional Messiah season in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Using the original musical material from Messiah, Alsop, Christianson, and Anderson reinvented the basic melodic and harmonic outlines of Handel’s original by using scat, backbeats, jazz and gospel vocals, and instrumental improvisation. If you missed it this year, mark your calendar for December 2023 when “Too Hot to Handel” returns to the Auditorium Theatre.