Lyric Opera House

Is there any reason why "A Chorus Line" won't still be playing somewhere in the world in the 21st century? Having set a record as the longest running Broadway show with its amazing New York run from 1975 to 1990, this landmark musical is still generating globe-trotting touring productions.The company that opened at a nearly full Lyric Opera House last night marks the fifth time this self-described "singular sensation" of a musical has played Baltimore. Directed and choreographed for this tour by Baayork Lee, who originated the role of Connie on Broadway, the latest edition of the Michael Bennett-conceived show features a number of performers who are themselves "Chorus Line" veterans.

A Baltimore man suing Live Nation has added the Lyric Opera House to the lawsuit, alleging the theater received "kickbacks" from the behemoth concert promoter. Both the Lyric and Live Nation moved to dismiss Thursday. The lawsuit comes as Live Nation prepares to settle a separate, $22.3 million class action lawsuit over its service fees. Andre Bourgeois filed a class action lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its corporate parent, Live Nation, in June in Baltimore's U.S. District Court.

The next big architectural controversy in the University of Baltimore area is likely to be the $2 million expansion proposed for the Lyric Opera House, the 1894 landmark that is owned by the Lyric Foundation, a non-profit group controlled by the University of Baltimore Education Foundation. University of Baltimore President H. Mebane Turner is chairman of its executive committee.Plans drawn up more than a year ago by Richter Cornbrooks Gribble Inc. of Baltimore call for the theater's east wall -- along Maryland Avenue -- to be knocked out so the backstage area can be expanded, enabling the Lyric to accommodate operas and Broadway-style shows that require larger and more complicated scenery.

Artscape stopped taking online reservations for ticketed events today. Those tickets are now only available at Guest Services at Lyric Opera House, or at the ticket stations on site. Some readers had complained about glitches on the ticketing website today. Tracy Baskerville, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, said the website's server was overwhelmed. "We have had a high a volume of folks on the web site [sic]... and our web company is increasing our space," she wrote over e-mail.  But as for the tickets, all pre-event reservations have sold out, Baskerville said.

Rosalee T. "Kitty" Countess, a retired usher and cloakroom attendant whose cheerful and unflappable demeanor endeared her to Lyric Opera House patrons for more than two decades, died in her sleep Sunday at Milford Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pikesville. She was 87. Born and raised in Baltimore, Miss Countess was a graduate of St. Peter Claver parochial school and, after leaving Frederick Douglass High School, worked as a housekeeper with her mother during the 1930s. During World War II, she was a riveter building airplanes at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.

Although Baltimore artist R. McGill Mackall painted more than two dozen murals during a career that spanned five decades, few survive today.Many were lost or obscured when local buildings changed hands or were remodeled. These include three aviation-related murals at the old Friendship Airport, an early 19th-century view of Mount Vernon concealed behind a lobby wall at The Sun, and 10 of the 12 murals completed for branches of Loyola Federal Savings Bank.But one Mackall mural has been preserved and moved to a location where it will be seen by more people than ever before.

Musicals, comedy, magic and even a trip to the circus will highlight Performing Arts Productions' 1999-2000 season at the Lyric Opera House.The shows range from such classic American musicals as "The Sound of Music" and "Annie" to the Native American extravaganza, "Spirit," and the Big Apple Circus' first purely theatrical, non-tent production -- "OOPS."In all, eight different shows will be offered in subscription packages consisting of three or five productions -- a change in format aimed at attracting broad as well as more specialized audiences.

In a stage play, a telephone call can be a static, contrived device. Of course, as the title suggests, a telephone plays a prominent role in "Dial 'M' for Murder."And, in the touring production at the Lyric Opera House, there's no danger of the audience having to settle for hearing only half the conversation.That's because the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone is broadcast as loudly -- if not louder -- than the over-miked actor holding the receiver. This may seem like a niggling point, but it's indicative of how lost Frederick Knott's chamber-sized thriller is in the vast Lyric Opera House.

A few years ago, Chita Rivera was asked to write her autobiography. "They wanted a tell-all book and that's not what I'm interested in," the two-time Tony Award winner said recently from Richmond, Va., where she was appearing in "Chita & All That Jazz." The revue opens a one-week run at the Lyric Opera House tomorrow."Chita & All That Jazz" is, in part, her substitute for an autobiography. "I was coming towards the end of 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' and I realized that one doesn't dance forever," said Rivera, 65, whose career would appear to disprove that statement.

While the front of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House has been modernized in recent years, backstage it remains as cramped and antiquated as ever. Architects have found ways to revamp the auditorium, lobbies and dressing rooms, but expanding the stage area poses design issues that have been particularly difficult to resolve: How can owners deepen the stage without pushing the building onto Maryland Avenue? What's the best way to raise the roof so scenery can be stored out of sight? How can contractors minimize construction time so the theater isn't dark for a year or more?

One of the city's cultural landmarks is about to get a new name thanks to a $3.5 million gift from the former owner of the Baltimore Ravens. The Lyric — also known as the Lyric Opera House and, when it opened in 1894, the Music Hall — will become the Patricia & Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric after an official ceremony on Sept. 21. The change acknowledges the donation from Modell and his wife. The gift, one of the largest made to a Baltimore cultural institution, completes a $12.5 million capital campaign by the Lyric Foundation.

Managers of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House plan to begin construction this summer on a multimillion-dollar expansion and modernization of its backstage area - part of an effort to make the 1894 theater more capable of accommodating elaborate, large-scale productions. Architect Jonathan Fishman of RCG Inc. presented revised plans for the project Thursday to the city's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel. The latest design is a scaled-back version of previous plans. Sandy Richmond, executive director of the nonprofit Lyric Foundation that owns the building, said he did not have a cost estimate for the latest design.

You'd think that if anybody could dance through a snowstorm, it would be members of the Moscow Ballet. But the pre-Christmas blizzard that paralyzed the area forced the cancellation of the troupe's performances of "The Nutcracker" at the Lyric Opera House until this weekend. And now there's more lousy weather predicted. Nevertheless, performances set for Saturday and Sunday will go on.

The demise of the Baltimore Opera Company last season left a sizable void at the venue where the organization had long made its home. But losing a valued tenant hasn't taken the opera out of the Lyric Opera House. The theater has lined up its own operatic activity for the 2009-2010 season. Although modest in terms of quantity - just three performances - the series has the potential of delivering on the quality end, and of laying the groundwork for more extensive seasons in the future. "The Lyric is thoroughly committed to having opera here," says Jim Harp, former artistic administrator and education coordinator of the Baltimore Opera.

This week's high drama at the Senator Theatre reminded me that owning and maintaining an old entertainment palace is not easy. Put your name on a theatrical mortgage at your own financial and mental peril. The lights of the marquee may impart excitement and glamour. But the anxiety involved with keeping up a roof, walls, furnace and upholstery in a house that seats hundreds of people is a killer. And what about the bank that holds the deed? Two summers ago, I was walking along Baltimore Street and spotted an open door at the Morris Mechanic Theatre, which, at that point, had ceased being an operating entertainment venue.

No, I haven't stopped thinking about Baltimore's opera future. And, thanks to some others in the area similarly focused, I've got a lot more to think about. Last week, Giorgio Lalov and Jenny Kelly announced the debut season of their Baltimore Opera Theatre at the Hippodrome - Rossini's The Barber of Seville in November and Verdi's Rigoletto in March. This will not be the all-local company Lalov and Kelly initially announced. These inaugural presentations, using an orchestra and chorus from Europe augmented with area musicians, suggest a version of the couple's longtime touring company, Teatro Lirico d'Europa.

"Rent," the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, is coming to the Mechanic Theatre for five weeks in the fall of 1998.The show, presented in cooperation with the Lyric Opera House, will be at the Mechanic from Sept. 22 through Oct. 25.Mechanic subscribers will have first call on tickets Sept. 29 through Oct. 11. Lyric subscribers will get first call Oct. 13 through Oct. 18. Non-subscribers can buy tickets for other dates.The announcement that "Rent" will come to the Mechanic was part of a story in yesterday's Sun about the Lyric Opera House's 1998 season.

In yesterday's Today section, a story about the stage production "The Wizard of Oz" incorrectly stated the location of the show. It runs through Sunday at the Lyric Opera House.The Sun regrets the error.

The first time Placido Domingo stood on the stage of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House, he sang. When he returns on Tuesday, after 43 years, he won't open his mouth. Instead, the eminent Spanish-born singer, who has performed at all of the world's leading opera houses and who, with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, rocked the global market in 1990 as part of the storied Three Tenors phenomenon, will be on the podium. He will conduct Puccini's Turandot with soloists, orchestra and chorus of Washington National Opera.