Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
Concertante di Chicago: Viennese whipped cream spiced with a dash of paprika was served up by Hilel Kagan and Concertante di Chicago on Friday at DePaul University Concert Hall with a rousing concert version of Imre Kalman’s 1915 operetta, “The Csardas Princess.” If the plot remained inscrutable despite Pilar Garcia’s energetic English narration, a quintet of talented Hungarian soloists–singing in their native language–brought Kalman’s tuneful score to fizzing life. Kagan and his Concertante players tossed off the lilting waltzes and whirling Magyar rhythms with all the brashly idiomatic flair of a 1915 Budapest pit band.
