Displaying items by tag: Chicago Philharmonic

Marking Rocky’s 50th anniversary, Rocky in Concert arrived at the Auditorium Theatre in a highly anticipated Auditorium Philms presentation featuring the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra performing Bill Conti’s score live. The setup is simple but effective: the film plays above the stage while the Philharmonic brings new clarity and presence to a soundtrack audiences know by heart. What emerges is a familiar story given a fresh sense of scale, where the music’s live energy adds texture without overwhelming the film’s grit, humor, and underdog charm.

At its core, Rocky remains one of the most enduring underdog stories in American cinema. The film follows Rocky Balboa, a small-time Philadelphia boxer and part-time debt collector who drifts through life with more heart than opportunity. When heavyweight champion Apollo Creed needs a last-minute opponent for a New Year's Day exhibition bout, he plucks Rocky from obscurity as a publicity stunt, figuring that "the Italian Stallion" makes for a good headline. What begins as a novelty match becomes a personal turning point: Rocky trains with a new sense of purpose, steadied by the quiet support of Adrian, the shy pet-store clerk who becomes the emotional anchor of his climb. The plot is simple, but its sincerity, its belief in small steps, second chances, and self-respect, has kept it resonant for fifty years.

The film's cast is a major reason it works as well as it does. Sylvester Stallone's performance is unvarnished and deeply human, capturing Rocky's mix of awkwardness, humor, vulnerability, and stubborn grit. Talia Shire brings a gentle, lived-in warmth to Adrian, charting her transformation from withdrawn to self-possessed with remarkable subtlety. Burt Young's Paulie is volatile but never one-note, and Burgess Meredith's Mickey, raspy, relentless, and unexpectedly tender, became one of the most iconic mentors in film history. Carl Weathers, as Apollo Creed, delivers a charismatic, razor-sharp performance that elevates the film's stakes; he is not a villain, but a showman whose confidence forces Rocky to rise to the moment.

Behind the scenes, the story of how Rocky came to be is almost as compelling as the film itself. Stallone wrote the screenplay in just a few days after watching the 1975 Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner fight, where Wepner, a heavy underdog, managed to knock Ali down and go nearly the full fifteen rounds. United Artists loved the script but wanted a bankable star in the lead; they offered Stallone a substantial sum, with reports ranging from $250,000 to $350,000, for the screenplay alone. At the time, Stallone was nearly broke, living in a small apartment with his wife and dog, and had only a handful of minor acting credits. Turning down that kind of money was, by any rational measure, a terrible idea. But he refused to sell unless he could play Rocky himself. Eventually, the studio relented, slashing the budget to under $1 million and agreeing to cast Stallone on the condition that the production stay lean and fast.

The gamble paid off beyond anything anyone expected. Rocky became a critical and commercial phenomenon, winning three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and launching Stallone's career. But the deeper truth is that the film's authenticity is inseparable from Stallone's insistence on embodying the character he created. Rocky Balboa was not just a role; he was a reflection of Stallone's own belief that the long shot is still worth taking.

When Rocky reached the 1977 Academy Awards, it proved just as formidable as its title character, earning ten nominations and walking away with three major wins. The film claimed Best Picture, Best Director for John G. Avildsen, and Best Film Editing, beating out heavyweight contenders like Network and Taxi Driver. Sylvester Stallone received nominations for both Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, a rare double honor that underscored how deeply his creative fingerprints shaped the film. Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith, and Burt Young all earned acting nominations, and Bill Conti’s propulsive score was recognized as well. For a low‑budget production made on less than a million dollars, Rocky’s Oscar run remains one of Hollywood’s most remarkable underdog victories.

The Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor James Olmstead, played Bill Conti’s legendary Rocky score with a precision and vitality that made the music feel newly alive. Those familiar fanfares, string surges, and brass punches carried a thrilling immediacy when performed by musicians you could actually watch working – bows flying, percussionists locking in the heartbeat of the training montages, trumpets cutting cleanly through the hall. Part of the fun for the audience was seeing just how much craft goes into a soundtrack they’ve heard for decades; every cue landed with crisp timing, and the orchestra’s energy fed directly into the crowd’s excitement. What emerged was more than accompaniment – a full‑scale performance that underscored just how essential the score is to the film’s spirit.

For all the strengths of the orchestra and the film, the evening wasn’t without a few technical hiccups. The film wasn’t cued up at the start, so the orchestra began playing before the movie rolled, leading to an awkward pause before things fully got underway, and once the screening began, the movie’s volume sat noticeably low for the first five to ten minutes. The fix came in the opposite direction, with the sound pushed so high that the dialogue became distorted, making it difficult to catch some of the film’s key lines or even hear the ringside announcers clearly calling the big fight finale. The imbalance proved distracting, especially in an otherwise strong presentation. Still, having seen other Auditorium Philms productions, I’m comfortable chalking this up as an outlier. Their track record is solid, and one uneven sound mix doesn’t diminish the ambition or appeal of the series.

Outside of the technical issues, one programming choice stood out as particularly curious: the musical director’s decision to feature “Eye of the Tiger” both after intermission and again at the end of the film. It’s an undeniably crowd‑pleasing anthem, but it belongs to Rocky III, not the 1976 original, and for Rocky loyalists it felt like an odd fit within a celebration of the first film’s legacy. With Bill Conti’s score already doing the heavy lifting, the addition of a theme from a later sequel created a momentary disconnect in an otherwise faithful presentation. However, many audience members cheered on the Survivor hit, so even if purists bristled, the moment still connected with a good share of the crowd.

Bottom line: even with a few mishaps and an unexpected music choice along the way, as someone who counts Rocky among my all‑time favorite films - a movie I revisit a couple of times each year - seeing it paired with a live orchestra was an experience that felt both familiar and entirely new. Hearing the Chicago Philharmonic bring Bill Conti’s music to life in real time added a dimension I didn’t know I was missing, and it made this 50th‑anniversary screening feel genuinely special. Auditorium Philms’ “In Concert” productions have already built a strong track record with their film‑in‑concert events, including recent presentations like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Their upcoming slate is just as appealing, with titles such as Top Gun: Maverick, Edward Scissorhands, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York on the horizon.

In the end, Rocky in Concert proved that when a timeless film meets a live orchestra, the result is a reminder of why these stories stay with us.

To find out more about upcoming events at The Auditorium Theatre, click here.

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

Blade Runner Live? Don’t worry, it’s not a musical adaptation of Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic. It’s the inaugural film in The Auditorium Theater’s new series, Auditorium Philms, in which five films will be live scored by the Chicago Philharmonic. Performances are scheduled throughout the year and include a special 35th anniversary presentation of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns as well as Francis Ford Copolla’s 1992 version of Dracula.

Likely inspired by the success of Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s live scored film events, The Auditorium’s new series offers a unique way to enjoy classical music performance. In many ways, Hollywood film composers have kept the spirit of classical music alive, or at the very least made orchestra music more accessible to the masses. And who doesn’t sometimes put on their favorite film scores to get some work done?

The Chicago Philharmonic brings a small troupe of performers to the grand stage of The Auditorium, but however small they’re just as mighty. The score leaps off the stage and into the highest rafters of the enormous, gilded hall. Huge shows of percussion give an audience the feeling that the score is as big of a character as either Harrison Ford or Daryl Hannah. A musician also doubles as the vocalist, bringing a three dimensional element to the action-packed score.

Auditorium Philms creates a new hybrid movie theater-going experience. They’re blending the traditional theatre model (including a short intermission) with the “Imax” type rollercoaster ride audiences seem to clamor for with every passing superhero movie. The pandemic further cemented people’s love for not just film, but for also the sense of community that certain films create. Think ComicCon.  Blade Runner, Batman, etc there’s a fan-base that loves to cosplay and generally get to know each other. This series will provide a perfect place for film, theatre and music lovers to “nerd out” among like-minded folks.

Auditorium Philms run throughout 2024, check out the schedule here.

All apologies to the teachers and professors who groomed me to be a ceaseless reader and sporadic writer — I never finished Anna Karenina. But while I never plowed through all 900 pages of Tolstoy’s novel, moments from the book have stayed with me. One of them is just a line, one seemingly effortless line among pages full of them, and what a line it is: “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”

As I reflect on the variety, the charm, and the beauty I was privileged to behold at the Joffrey Ballet’s world premiere of Yuri Possokhov’s production of his countryman’s classic, I realize I witnessed a whole world of light and shadow being created right there on the Auditorium Theatre’s stage.

The creation of that entire world was, most obviously, performed by Possokhov’s choreography carried out by the Joffrey’s outstanding company, of course. Victoria Jaiani’s Anna navigates said world in both light and shadow — beautiful but damaged, faced with reality but delirious. Her husband Karenin, towers over the stage, as portrayed by the magnificent Fabrice Calmels, as a stately, stern husband and father and statesman. Just as stately, while also boyish and beautiful, Alberto Velazquez’s Vronsky lures the audience just as he lures poor Anna. And parallel to the love triangle and tragedy that envelope those three is the love story between Yoshihisa Arai’s Levin and Anais Bueno’s Kitty. If the former affair gives us the shadow, then the latter relationship brings it into the light.

These lights and shadows do not flicker before us thanks solely to the dancers, however. No, the spectacle of sight and sound beyond the dancing are every bit as stunning. Tom Pye’s sets and David Finn’s lighting navigates from dusky railyards to sunny Tuscany, from opium dreams to canapé flings. Of the many delights dished out by the Joffrey’s Nutcracker, perhaps my favorite was its use of projections, and Finn Ross’ projections for 'Anna Karenina' equal those, coloring the story and conjuring spirits.

But from curtain to curtain, the visual thrills are always complemented and often eclipsed by Ilya Demutsky’s original score directed by Scott Speck. The Chicago Philharmonic’s accompaniment, shifting seamlessly from elegance to dissonance, while always both classic and contemporary, is joined by Lindsay Metzger’s mezzo-soprano — who literally joins the show by the end — to craft this world of light and shadow in multiple dimensions that quicken multiple sensations.

So join the Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre for Anna Karenina through February 24, as all of these world-class talents work together to shade and illuminate, to craft and create the variety and the charm and the beauty one would expect from a hefty literary classic written a century-and-a-half ago and half a world away.