Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 57

Chicago Tribune, Saturday. January 13, 2001 Section 1 25 11 1 Tr 1 Story time The first of 2001s "Stories on Stage," dramatic readings of short stories by local actors, comes to the MCA at 3 p.m. Sunday with a story by Allan Gurganus; upcoming performances are Feb. 11 and March 11. 312-832-3404.

Spin room Renowned beats master DJ Scribble comes to the House of Blues on Jan. 27. 312-559-1212. Online reviews For Chicago Tribune critics' recent reviews of pop, rock, dance, theater and jazz performances, go to metromix.comgocriticsreviews. Arts Watch 'Chocolat' role sweetest in years for Olin Taking risks Michael Gielen leads the CSO on different path WW 1 I it.

IP wtmmmfm i i i i i Tribune photo by John Bartley Michael Gielen conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven and Schoenberg Thursday night Lena Olin (right) and Juliette Binoche star in "Chocolat." They also starred in the 1988 film "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." By John von Rhein Tribune Music Ckitic mong conductors of today, it does seem that making symphonic programs that are varied but coherent, en joyable but challenging, is a dying art form. Michael Gielen, bless him, is a shining exception. The programs the guest conductor is presenting at Symphony Center in his two weeks with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are fine examples of enlightened program-making by a musician willing to take risks and who is able to persuade his players to be risk-takers too. Beethoven and Schoenberg, those mighty bookends of the German musical tradition, were the subjects of his investigation Thursday night. Two of the three Beethoven pieces were unusual chamber music by that composer as arranged by Franz Liszt and Gielen himself.

Both represent homages to the colossus that was Beethoven. Gielen combined them with a homage of another sort Schoen-berg's symphonic poem "Pelleas und Melisande" (1903), which honors the late-Romantic tonal tradition that Schoenberg would tear asunder following his conversion to the serialist gospel. The two transcriptions Liszt's arrangement for orchestra of the slow movement from Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, and Gielen's string-orchestra version of the "Grosse Fuge" were combined with the "Egmont" Overture as a kind of Beethoven "symphony" in three movements. For anyone who still had the vel- A Classical review vety strings of the Saito Kinen Orchestra in his or her ears from the previous night's concert, the harsh string sound Gielen drew from the CSO in the "Egmont" Overture came as a shock. This surely was deliberate on his part, as if he were giving us a musical portrait of the freedom-loving Beethoven shaking his fist at political tyranny After this strenuous account, the "Andante cantabile" came as sweet, soothing balm to the ears.

Liszt's transcription bears almost no resemblance to the original, nor does it sound very much like Liszt call it a beautiful anomaly. The scoring is undeniably effective, with rippling harp arpeggios and discreet instrumental conversation that elicited lovely playing from various CSO principals. But it was Gielen's bold arrangement of Beethoven's "Great Fugue" that made the strongest impression of the evening. Without changing a note of the original, Gielen has given the piece (originally scored for string quartet) a spatial dimension by tossing the angular melodic lines back and forth between string choirs and individual players. Themes are We-bernized, fragmented; the eight double basses mark the rhythm with snapped Bartok pizzicatos.

This great, garrulous landmark of contrapuntal mastery is at once clarified and made to sound astonishingly modern. There is no getting around the difficulty of the string writing, which exposed weaknesses of intonation and ensemble that no doubt will be corrected in later performances. "Pelleas und Melisande" is tonal music trembling on the brink of atonality; after this, there would be no turning back for Schoenberg. With its thick scoring and overripe chromaticism, the 45-minute tone poem works itself up to one ecstatic climax after another. It takes a conductor with a firm sense of perspective to save the music from its own excesses.

Gielen did so in a tightly argued, clear-headed reading. The price of this intellectual rigor was a lack of atmosphere. Hardly any of the score's softer dynamics were realized, while some of the brass playing was painfully loud. The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday and 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday; phone 312-294-3000. 41 "My looks worked in my favor, I think," she said. "I don't look like the Nordic Swedish woman, with blond hair and blue eyes. So I've played Russians, Swedes, Poles, French, women from all over the world. The only thing I haven't played is an American woman." Olin, 44, was born in Stockholm and enjoyed a busy career in Sweden before "Fanny Alexander" gave her the chance to work with one of the cinema's legends, Bergman, on his final film.

Working with Bergman "affected everything that has come since," she said. She acted for Sydney Pollack Sidney Lumet Falls on Paul Mazursky a Love Roman Polanski Ninth and finally, the man who since 1994 has been her second husband, Hall-strom, famous for directing "My Life as a Dog," "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "The Cider House Rules." "I knew that he had a heart of gold, just from watching his movies," she said of Hallstrom. "You can't make a movie like 'My Life as a Dog' without having a true heart." One thing neither of them had to fake in "Chocolat" was a "thing" 71 Merehanl Ivorv Productions oresents Ratcatcher A film by Lyme Ramsay W-rvUnUvwy WWWlfp.C0m WW 12:30, 2:40, 3:00, 7:20 A 9:30 One Of The Best NaH Rwn, NY1 ToucfflNG, Soulful And hiurious!" Mark S. Allan, UPH-TV "Wonderfully Uplifting!" Jan WaM, NBC-TV "Supremely Enjoyable!" DavM ShtMhan, CM 1 Loved This Movie! HoHy McChira, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER NICOLAS CAGE By Roger Moore Ohijvndo Skntinkl t's a curse being Lena Olin. Not a big curse.

No tall beauty with those eyes and those cheekbones is unlucky enough to pity. Just a little curse, one that keeps the "Chocolat" star from working as often as an actress as sexy and exotic as she should work in the land of short memories, Hollywood. Director Philip Kaufman cast Olin in the film that made her reputation, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), a film that also introduced Olin's "Chocolat" co-star, Juliette Binoche to American audiences. Kaufman, whose most recent film is "Quills," is downright apologetic about the career that landed Olin in such lesser lights as "Havana," "Mr. Jones" and "Mystery Men." I feel guilty for not having made more movies, simply because I should have made more movies with her in them," Kaufman said.

"She's got wonderful presence, very funny, very earthy, very sexy. Very cool. She is the complete actress." Olin first gained fame in Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny Alexander" (1982). After making her Hollywood splash, she has only occasionally had roles that allowed her to shine as a Holocaust survivor in "Enemies, a Love Story" (1989), as a crazed assassin in "Romeo Is Bleeding" (1992). Her turn in "Chocolat," the new fairy-tale confection directed by her husband, Lasse Hall-strom, is her tastiest role in years.

"Hollywood has trouble with any actor from Europe, because of the accent," she said from her home in Bedford, N. Y. "That, and my own reluctance to give up a big part of my life in order to work, haven't made me a bigger star. Even if you master the language, you still are going to have that 'European' label. Your choices are limited." She's not even Hollywood's conventional view of a Swede.

Instead of blond hair and blue eyes, she's got dark hair and eyes, and just a hint of an accent. vmmmwm CINE ARTS SOUTH BARRINGTON tlfUl UimHttl Utrtt ltnttt Uirm-lUK TICKFTS ACCEPTED li WW.MIttMll.CWII LINCOLNSHIRE 20 RICE LAKE SO, Mtftl U444 'll IMI RIDGE CINEMAS IHMfltl Ml. HI444 M14 RIVFR RUN 1 M71ll-ltp) MARCUS CINFMA tttwt WU4W MARCUS CINFMA ctnxt m. mini4m MARCUS CINEMA warn rut mnn im MFRRIllVTIll 11 Kctiimm tinti-wi R0RRIPGE mMii natMMI MM RORTHRWOK COURT 14 Btrtttnat MM OAKRROOX 1-7 knl lllM44-rUMn PARRY CINEMAS 14 BMM mV4M4MI Mil BIROIMIRST 11 I 'II, 444 -nit Mil RIVERTREE COURT VrM mm JIU444 tn nit ROURD LAKE IFACH1S mot utt um uiiuum SHONPIACE 11 CmUIUtllllMHIHi SOUTH IARRINGT0N IMt ItnMflM UUM IUK STRFAMWOnO fcii i i utvw ru STRFETS OF W0OOFIF10 till I III 141444 rHM Mil i A 4teJr K000RI0RE 'ft en, Cj omina i 1 BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR! 8w toTO'jMt Siirromo Actress 1 to Dm 6a Scout fcmtoml Kevin Thomas, so JlntjcLi Oimes iNE of the Best Pictures of MlEM! A Splendid Work fr fn ttt tin im nTirTiiir for chocolate. Olin said "men are even more obsessed with it than women." She plays Josephine, a repressed, abused woman whose spirit revives when a wandering choco-latier (Binoche) opens a shop in a small French village.

"There are always people who can't cope with living in a repressed society, and Josephine is one of them," Olin said. "She's tried to fit in, and failed. The culture she lives in, in this town, makes her a victim. When the movie begins, she has hit her lowest point. But the arrival of Vianne (Binoche) changes her, because Vianne sees her for who she is, and her friendship allows Josephine to become who she could be, who she wants to be.

"I played her as someone who sees herself as odd, and when she tries to cover that up, she seems even more odd. That desperation to fit in makes her seem" that way Olin likes the film's light, simple message, one that she said can apply even in her famously liberal homeland. Temptation is not necessarily evil. "Don't judge. Try to embrace, instead of reject.

Try to accept rather than deny people the right to be themselves. That's all this film is saying. What's wrong with that?" 7' MUSIC BOX WILMETTE Chka4o 773S7l-M WUmettt M71SI-7411 fms Toe I I TlA LEONI ion LMTtftPHML fllUtMM UNIVKllAb WMrliV lib mm, Mltx PIPERS ALLEY CINEMARK AT SEVEN BRIDGES CMcJt.2444-FUIK77 IHtKjt MMtMCT NO PASSFS OR DISCOUNT aia7RffVBVavVf Ll t-. lictlc BINOQC ui NOW SHOWING GARDENS CINF.MASofi'fflPu NORTHBROOK COURT 14 TIIS SEASON'S 900 N. MICHIGAN CANTFRA 30 LINCOLNSHIRE 20 FOiSniST, FUJIIillST SOHPiSISE!" "IT KITSI SAfiSSA Et'UCCK DOES rfflAT SHE COES BEST." -Jool Stagxl, GOOD MORNING AMERICA a deuchti wickedly mza: -BiH Diahl, ABC RADIO NETWORK The Family Man at the Highest Level!" ScRirftR'AwARrA NOMINEE ROBERT NELSON JACOBS, OCOCUi DENCH Aired MOUNA Lena OUN tfimy DEPP SOUTH BARRINGTON YORKTOWN 18 CINEMA 7 IHK 1 1 fi i ka it.

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