Opera Now and Then at Grant Park Music Festival: This weekend’s Grant Park concerts offered a rather odd collection of music under the slightly misleading heading of “Opera Now and Then ” two operatically connected orchestral works, and a mass setting by Giacomo Puccini.
The concert opened with a well-played reading of John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances,” a minimalist fox trot inspired by his opera “Nixon in China.” It then moved to the evening’s most musically interesting work, a suite composed of the five stage-setting entr’actes from Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District.” Conductor Richard Westerfield aptly caught the varying moods of this unsettling work, leading the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in a smashing account of the final movement. The second half was the “Messa di Gloria,” a student composition barely recognizable as Puccini’s until the very last section, an “Agnus Dei” with familiar tendencies. Bass-baritone Gary Martin had a full, rich sound in his higher range, but was a little precarious in the lowest tones. Carlo Scibelli offered a promising Italianate tenor. The Grant Park Symphony Chorus, under the direction of guest choral conductor Jason Balla, sang most sections very well.