Media Alert

As I've mentioned in the past, starting a few years ago the wonderful (indeed, renowned), the Lyric Opera of Chicago has staged a Broadway musical as part of its season's repertoire.  And the classical music station, WFMT, always broadcasts the first night of a Lyric Opera performance.

Tonight is the night of that broadcast.  And the Lyric's latest production is their season's musical -- Rodgers & Hammerstein's  The King and I.  And happily, WFMT streams their broadcasts.

Though the leads come from the world of Broadway, most of the supporting players are opera singers, and the ensemble are the Chicago Lyric Chorus.

The production stars Kate Baldwin and Paolo Mantalban.  She received a Tony nomination in 2009 as Best Actress in a musical for the revival of Finian’s Rainbow.  She also has appeared on Broadway in The Full Monty, as well as Thoroughly Modern Millie and the revival of Wonderful Town.  Mantalban (no relation to Riccardo, rather he's from the Philippines) is probably best-known for starring as the Prince in the TV musical version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. As it happens, he also had a small role in a Broadway revival of The King and I 20 years ago.

If you want to hear this show, it airs on WFMT at 7 PM in Chicago, which is 5 PM Los Angeles time.  (And 8 PM in the East.)  You can get the streaming feed here.  Then, just click on the blue "Listen" button on the upper-left.  But you could probably figure that part out...

In the meantime, here's a brief promotional video that the Lyric put out.  The production looks absolutely wonderful.