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When Lyric Opera of Chicago went COVID-dark on March 13, 2020, the next show was supposed to be Götterdämmerung, the fourth of four installments in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, a.k.a. the Ring cycle. Lyric had doled out one opera per season for the past four, and after premiering Götterdämmerung, the company planned to loop back around to the beginning of the story and run all the productions in the space of a week, in three total cycles. Überfans travel around the globe for Ring cycles, like opera’s analog of Deadheads. Lyric estimated the cancellations cost it $15 million.

“Pivoting is an essential part of life,” says Anthony Freud, Lyric’s general director. But in opera, with each production often requiring five years of planning, companies pivot more like cruise ships than point guards. Which makes it all the more impressive to see Lyric return to in-person performance with Twilight: Gods, running April 28 and 30 and May 2. Or rather, in-vehicle performance. Twilight: Gods is a six-scene drive-through opera that Lyric developed jointly with Michigan Opera Theatre. Pods of eight or nine cars, windows rolled up, proceed from set to set in the subterranean Millennium Lakeside Parking Garage. People drive up to a scene, turn off their engines (but not the power), and listen to an FM transmission of the music performed outside their car.

The music and libretto distill 65 minutes from the five-hour Götterdämmerung (which translates to “twilight of the gods”), punctuated by original verse from local poet avery r. young, who serves as narrator and guide, a Virgil for the automotive audience. His contribution is for Chicago alone; a different poet filled this role at the show’s Detroit premiere in October. “It wasn’t about placing Valhalla on 63rd and Ashland,” young says. “It’s what I do with language and performance that is Chicago.”

Already in collaboration with Lyric on a new commission tentatively scheduled for 2023, director Yuval Sharon took on a position with the company to create pandemic-proper art; he also assumed the artistic directorship of Michigan Opera Theatre last fall. He marshaled the suddenly idle resources of both companies to grow a show from the germ of social distancing. Twilight: Gods reached its stage, such as it is, in about six months. “Opera can benefit greatly from a sense of spontaneity that the machinery of opera doesn’t always allow for,” Sharon says.

The show brings atypical intimacy. The barrier of the windshield and the sound arriving through the stereo may seem alienating, but they’re outweighed by the small size of the pods of vehicles and the physical proximity to the singers. “Even though you are in your car, Christine Goerke is nevertheless 10 feet away from you,” says Sharon, referring to the superstar soprano who sang Brünnhilde in the Detroit production of Twilight: Gods, as she was supposed to for Lyric’s Ring.

Catherine Martin, a mezzo-soprano who plays Waltraute, a Valkyrie, in the opening scene, had also been rehearsing for the Ring at the time of the March shutdown. She found participating in Twilight: Gods in Detroit surprisingly emotional; they are the only offline performances she’s done between the shutdown and now. “I didn’t know if I’d get to wear it again,” Martin says of her rich scarlet Ring costume. She felt intensely connected to the audience. “The first few sets of cars, you could see people just kinesthetically feeling this release,” she says. “I saw people burst into tears.”

Although Twilight: Gods will be recorded and Freud doesn’t rule out remounting it someday, perhaps alongside a future Ring, the show feels very much a denizen of this odd liminal time in history. When else will a roughly half-million-square-foot floor of a parking garage be free? When else will human connection feel so novel? It appears out of the mist and is gone. Which, come to think of it, is the essence of live performance.

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Pieces of homes and twisted metal laid amid broken trees in the hardest-hit areas, but no one died and the region appeared to escape the kind of horrific toll many feared after ominous predictions of monster twisters and huge hail.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Storms that left splintered homes and broken trees across Alabama and Mississippi moved into Georgia and Florida on Thursday, rousing residents with early morning warnings as forecasters said the threat of dangerous weather would move up the south Atlantic seaboard.

About 20,000 homes and business were without power and the weather service said at least two people were hurt when an apparent tornado struck southwest Alabama, destroying a house. Pieces of homes and twisted metal laid amid broken trees in the hardest-hit areas, but no one died and the region appeared to escape the kind of horrific toll many feared after ominous predictions of monster twisters and huge hail.

“Overall, we have a lot to be grateful for, as it could have been much worse,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.

The National Weather Service office in central Alabama said teams were fanning out Thursday to assess damage in at least 12 counties where tornadoes may have touched down.

Forecasters issued a string of tornado warnings around the region where Alabama, Georgia and Florida intersect, but there were no immediate reports of major damage. A line of storms stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to West Virginia, and the Storm Prediction Center said other, isolated severe storms were possible from southern Ohio into the central Appalachians.

“Significant tornadoes, wind damage and large hail will be possible from morning into afternoon,” the center said. “Severe thunderstorms will also be possible from parts of the eastern Gulf Coast into the southern and central Appalachians.”

The metro Atlanta area was pelted by heavy rain with intense lightning and strong wind gusts of up to 50 mph. Morehouse College tweeted that it was delaying the opening of its campus until 11 a.m. and that faculty and staff should not arrive until after that time. All classes before then were to be held virtually, it said.

In South Carolina, the severe weather threat led the state Senate president to caution senators to stay home Thursday while urging staff to work remotely for their safety. House Speaker Jay Lucas said that chamber would meet less than an hour Thursday to take up routine motions in advance of a budget debate next week — then adjourn.

“If you are in a situation where it is perilous that you come, I’m asking you not to come,” Lucas said. “If you can come, give us a quorum and do these few things we need to do, we will be out of here in a hurry.”

Nearly all of South Carolina is under moderate risk of severe storms. The forecast led a number of the state’s school systems to call off in-person classes Thursday and have students and teachers meet online.

On Wednesday, possible tornadoes in Alabama knocked down trees, toppled power lines and damaged homes. Some of the worst problems were in rural Clarke County, where authorities said two people were hurt when a home was destroyed and several others were damaged.

Between Montgomery and Birmingham in Chilton County, a storm destroyed at least three homes including that of resident Jimmy Baker.

“Then about a minute before it got here, we jumped … in the hall closet, a little, small closet,” Baker told WSFA-TV. “And just we heard it. You know, the sound from the house coming down. We were saved. We thank the Lord for that,” he said.

In north Alabama, where forecasters said as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain fell, a woman who rescuers found clinging to a tree after her car was swamped by floodwaters in Morgan County was treated at a hospital, but details about her condition were not immediately available. Schools closed in neighboring Madison County because of flooding.

Roofs were yanked off homes in Moundville, south of Tuscaloosa. “There’s a lot of trees down. I guess it had to be a tornado; it got out of here pretty fast,” aid Michael Brown, whose family owns Moundville Ace Hardware and Building.

Additional damage was reported in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi, where video showed an apparent tornado at Brookhaven. High winds blew down signs and trees in northeast Texas, and hailstones the size of baseballs were reported near the Alabama-Mississippi line, the weather service said.

More than 70,000 homes and businesses were without power at one point from Texas to Alabama, which was under a state of emergency, and communities across the South used social media to share the location of tornado shelters.

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The man drove his Toyota Camry into the back of the ambulance while the ambulance was stopped in the 700 block of North Kedzie Avenue, Chicago police said.

Misdemeanor DUI charges were filed against a man who allegedly rear-ended an ambulance Wednesday while a 6-year-old boy rode in his car in East Garfield Park.

The 30-year-old drove his Toyota Camry into the back of the ambulance about 7:50 p.m. while the ambulance was stopped in the 700 block of North Kedzie Avenue, Chicago police said.

Neither the man nor the two Chicago Fire Department paramedics in the ambulance were injured, police said.

Police sources said there was a 6-year-old boy in the backseat of the Camry. The boy was not injured but taken to St. Mary’s Hospital as a precaution.

The man was charged with misdemeanor counts of DUI, driving without license, child endangerment and criminal damage to fire fighting equipment.

He was also cited for failing to reduce speed and driving an uninsured vehicle.

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In Episode 15 of Gourmet To-Go, a series on restaurants and chefs who’ve pivoted, we visit Sfera, a delivery and pick-up only restaurant in Avondale that offers hearty Sicilian street food.Read More

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An 8-year-old girl jumped to safety from a third-floor window of a burning home in Washington Park after throwing a mattress to the ground.

Firefighters then entered the home by ladder late Wednesday in the 6100 block of South Wabash Avenue and rescued her younger brothers, ages 2 and 5, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

“You have to think about how innovative this child was… And we’re lucky we rescued the other children,” department spokesman Frank Velez said.

The three children were treated for smoke inhalation at Comer Children’s Hospital, where they were upgraded from serious to good condition, Velez said.

No adults were home at the time of the blaze, he said.

The mother of the children was located later in the morning, according to Chicago police spokeswoman Sally Bown. No charges were currently pending, she said.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The fire broke out shortly before midnight Wednesday in the rear kitchen of an apartment at a housing development, but the cause of the fire remained under investigation, Velez said. He said there were no indications it was intentional.

The blaze was contained to one unit, Velez said. The 12-unit apartment complex was partially evacuated, and residents took shelter in a warming bus, he said. There were no other injuries or displacements, Velez said.

About 20 fire department vehicles and nearly 40 firefighters worked to extinguish the fire, he said.

The department initially provided different ages for the children.

Citing privacy laws, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services spokeswoman La’Kiaya White declined to say if the agency was investigating the incident.

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On February 22, 1983, Harold Washington won the Democratic primary for mayor, with 36 percent of the vote. With nearly unanimous support from the Black community, Washington defeated a pair of Irish candidates—incumbent mayor Jane Byrne and future mayor Richard M. Daley—who split the white ethnic vote. After Washington was inaugurated, 29 white aldermen formed a bloc to oppose his administration, setting off the Council Wars which would define Chicago politics for the next four years.

Just imagine, though, if Chicago had used ranked-choice voting in 1983. Daley, the third place candidate, would have been eliminated after the first round. His supporters’ votes would then have been distributed to their second choice. Can you imagine Daley voters in Bridgeport and Beverly listing Harold Washington as the second choice on their ballots? Or listing him at all? The landslide majority of Daley’s support would have gone to Byrne, electing her to a second term. Thus, no Mayor Washington. No Council Wars. And a young Columbia University graduate might not have applied for a job as a community organizer in Jane Byrne’s Chicago. So no President Obama, either. The history of Chicago, the nation, and the world would be very different.

Nearly 40 years after Harold Washington’s election, there are campaigns to bring ranked-choice Voting to Chicago and Illinois—by the exact same sort of progressive reformers who would have voted for city’s first black mayor. Should they be careful what they wish for

Ranked-choice voting was a good-government pipe dream in 1983, but it has now been adopted by two states and 32 cities. Maine voters approved it in 2016. Two years later, a congressional candidate who finished second in the first round of balloting won the election with second- and third-place votes. Last November, Alaska became the second state to adopt the system

Now, there’s a campaign to bring it to Illinois. A bill sponsored by Rep. Jaime Andrade, D-Chicago, proposes to use RCV in general elections for the legislature and statewide constitutional officers. It’s currently under consideration by the House Ethics & Elections Committee. State Sens. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, and Mike Simmons, D-Chicago, are sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate.

FairVote Illinois is an organization devoted exclusively to bringing RCV to the state. Executive director Andrew Szilva believes the system reduces political polarization, builds trust in government, and—despite the fact that it would have sunk Washington’s campaign—leads to the election of more minorities and women.

“What we’re finding is in places that use RCV, it ensures minority support,” Szilva said. “It changes how candidates appeal to voters. Rather than just appealing to their bases, they’re encouraged to appeal to the whole electorate. Places that use RCV have seen an increase of representation by minorities.”

That, however, may have as much to do with the communities using RCV as the system itself. Minneapolis, St. Paul, San Francisco, Portland, Santa Fe, Oakland, Berkeley and Cambridge all elect their city councils with ranked-choice voting. Cities open to RCV are also open to electing minority candidates. On the other hand, Southern states use runoff elections to prevent Black candidates from winning by splitting the white vote—as Washington did. (To be fair to RCV, Washington would not have won under the city’s current non-partisan runoff system, either.)

21st-century Chicago has more in common with the above-mentioned liberal cities than it does with the Chicago of 1983. In the last mayoral election, the two finalists were Black women. No one seemed uptight about it. Nonetheless, said Szilva, that election is a great argument for RCV, since the winners emerged from a large field with small shares of the vote: “There were 14 candidates, and the top two, Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, had about 17 and 16 percent of the vote. They got about a third of the vote combined. The idea that the two people that go on got that few votes feels incredibly wrong and broken.” 

(Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, a proponent of RCV, conducted an exercise in which he projected which mayoral candidate would have won under the system. His conclusion: Lightfoot.)

47th Ward Ald. Matt Martin has been exploring RCV as a means of saving money and increasing voter participation by consolidating the city’s elections from two rounds to one. “I think we should be doing everything we can to ensure folks participate in the elections,” said Martin, who is still looking into whether the voting system can be changed by the City Council, or would require a citywide referendum.

The strongest argument for RCV is that it prevents “spoilers” from changing the outcome of an election. If Florida had used RCV in 2000, Al Gore would have won the state’s electoral votes as the second choice of Ralph Nader’s left-leaning voters. Here in Illinois, Paul Vallas would have defeated Rod Blagojevich in the 2002 Democratic primary for governor. In the first-past-the-post election, Blagojevich got 36 percent, Vallas 34 percent, and Roland Burris 25 percent. Since Vallas finished second to Burris in Chicago’s Black wards, it’s reasonable to assign him most Burris supporters’ second-place votes, thus sparing Illinois—and Blagojevich—a lot of trouble.

Getting an RCV bill through the Illinois legislature is going to be a heavy lift. Most politicians are reluctant to change a system that elected them. Maine and Alaska adopted RCV through popular referenda. Since the bill only applies to general elections, its impact would be limited. Most legislative seats are won in primaries, especially in Chicago. Nonetheless, FairVote Illinois sees it as the first step to a more just electoral system.

“We want to see ranked-choice voting at every level of voting,” Szilva said. “I fully anticipate that we’ll get ranked-choice voting in Illinois.” 

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Chicago Bulls: Devastating to see a 23 point lead evaporate in a loss by Ryan Taylor

The biggest free agency move for the Chicago Bears thus far came when they signed veteran quarterback Andy Dalton earlier this week.

It wasn’t exactly the splash fans were hoping for, especially at the quarterback position. But, this is where we’re at with the Bears and general manager Ryan Pace. ESPN’s Adam Schefter said on-air that Dalton was their top target, which should give fans reason to believe Pace has learned absolutely nothing.

Are the Bears really stuck in the same old story? Pace has whiffed on three quarterbacks, and this could end up being a fourth.

Now, after the Dalton signing, there are reports from Brad Biggs of The Chicago Tribune that the Bears could be looking to part ways with cornerback Kyle Fuller either via trade or cut. Fuller’s cap hit is $20 million for 2021. With Dalton signing a deal worth $10 million, it would be a shame to have to trade Fuller’s cap number to make more room after signing Dalton.

Not only could Fuller be on his way out, but defensive cornerstone and fan favorite Akiem Hicks may be as well.

The Chicago Bears’ stud defensive lineman might be on the NFL’s trade block.

Thursday morning on 670 The Score, Biggs was on and spoke about Hicks’ future. He specifically mentioned that he heard overnight about Hicks being on the trade block.

With this news, fans quickly jumped onto social media to do some more intel. One fan, in particular, found that Hicks had removed anything about him being a Chicago Bear on his Instagram profile. No longer does he say he’s part of the team — sometimes this is telling, sometimes it’s nothing.

We do not yet know if this will amount to anything, but with Hicks having injury concerns over the past couple of seasons, it does make a bit of sense that he could be traded.

Hicks is in the last year of his contract and the 31-year-old will count $12 million against the salary cap in 2021.

To add fuel to the fire, the Bears also signed former Arizona Cardinals defensive lineman Angelo Blackson. The 28-year-old had a career-high eight quarterback hits for the Cardinals in 2020 and comes to Chicago on a 2-year deal.

Blackson plays the same spot as Hicks, which leads many to believe that Biggs’ report of Hicks being on the trade block is true. Pretty soon, we could see a Bears defense down both Hicks and Fuller, all to accommodate a few minor signings to go along with Pace’s top target, Andy Dalton.

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Bears still have QB options after Dalton signing

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Pace and the Bears look more as if they are throwing in the towel on 2021 and getting ready for a rebuild than they do attempting to compete this season. If Hicks goes, and the Bears do not do everything they can to draft a first-round quarterback, you can count this season as a lost cause.

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An 8-year-old girl jumped to safety from a third-floor window of a burning home in Washington Park after throwing a mattress to the ground.

Firefighters then entered the home by ladder late Wednesday in the 6100 block of South Wabash Avenue and rescued her younger brothers, ages 2 and 5, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

“You have to think about how innovative this child was… And we’re lucky we rescued the other children,” department spokesman Frank Velez said.

The three children were treated for smoke inhalation at Comer Children’s Hospital, where they were upgraded from serious to good condition, Velez said.

No adults were home at the time of the blaze, he said.

The mother of the children was located later in the morning, according to Chicago police spokeswoman Sally Bown. No charges were currently pending, she said.

Chicago Fire Department

The fire broke out shortly before midnight Wednesday in the rear kitchen of an apartment at a housing development, but the cause of the fire remained under investigation, Velez said. He said there were no indications it was intentional.

The blaze was contained to one unit, Velez said. The 12-unit apartment complex was partially evacuated, and residents took shelter in a warming bus, he said. There were no other injuries or displacements, Velez said.

About 20 fire department vehicles and nearly 40 firefighters worked to extinguish the fire, he said.

The department initially provided different ages for the children.

A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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