February-March Highlights

Renee Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc

The Department of Music and Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
University Chorus
8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. 702-9075 for tickets, 702-8069 for information. $15 general, $8 students.
Under the direction of Randi Von Ellefson, the University Chorus and members of the University Symphony Orchestra will perform the oratorio Voices of Light to accompany the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc in a rare multimedia event. The combination of this film and music has been called “the most successful melding yet of classic cinema and live music.” Danish director Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film, thought to have been destroyed in warehouse fires, was recently discovered and restored. With Renee Falconetti as Joan of Arc, The Passion of Joan of Arc portrays the story of the 19-year-old French martyr as she stands trial and is eventually sentenced to death. Voices of Light, an oratorio by the young American composer Richard Einhorn, includes facets of medieval polyphony and rhapsodic minimalism to recreate the experience of Joan of Arc. Built around texts by women mystics of the Middle Ages, Einhorn’s piece includes a quartet of women’s voices speaking as Joan of Arc, verses of the noted 12th-century composer Hildegard von Bingen and a replication of the tolling church bells in the young martyr’s home town.

Bells for the Rockefeller Carillon arrive, July 26, 1932

Special Collections Research Center
“Life of the Spirit, Life of the Mind: Rockefeller Chapel at 75”
Monday, March 1 through Friday, June 18
8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Saturday.
Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St. 702-8705. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/. Free.
“As the spirit of religion should penetrate and control the University, so that building which represents religion ought to be the central and dominant feature of the University group.” This exhibition explores how Rockefeller Memorial Chapel’s bold mission has shaped its architecture as well as the programs it supports.

St. Lawrence String Quartet

The University of Chicago Presents
St. Lawrence String Quartet
8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20
Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St. 702-8068. http://chicagopresents.uchicago.edu/. $30 general, $11 students.
The St. Lawrence Quartet specializes in unconventional music, such as Argentinean-American composer Osvaldo Golijov’s “The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind.” Part of the quartet’s 2002 recording “Yiddishbbuk,” the work is inspired by kabbalistic writings of a 13th-century Provencal rabbi and juxtaposes prayers from the High Holy Days with Klezmer music. Also on the program is Haydn’s Quartet in B Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 and Ravel’s Quartet in F Major. Formed 14 years ago in Toronto, the St. Lawrence String Quartet is now resident at Stanford University.

Heidi Kettenring as Miss Adelaide

Court Theatre
Guys and Dolls
Through Sunday, March 28
5535 S. Ellis Ave. 753-4472. http://www.courttheatre.org. $35-50, with student and senior discounts available.
A quintessentially American musical with elements of both burlesque and vaudeville, Guys and Dolls tells the story of the unlikely love match between a slick Broadway gambler and a pure-hearted, save-a-soul mission worker. Based on Damon Runyon’s short story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown,” Guys and Dolls paints a picture of New York in the 1920s, introducing a cast of vivid characters who have become legends in the musical theatre canon.