Ball At The Savoy presented by Chicago Folks Operetta at Stage 773

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...Alison Kelly, the company's general director and frequent leading lady, makes the most of Madeleine's vulnerability, hurt and proto-feminist sensibility. She also cuts an attractive figure and gets to deliver some of the show's most winning songs, including the melting "Toujours l'amour." Her singing is, however, more problematic: While her middle register is secure, phrases that lie in her upper register tend to be shrill and hard-edged whenever she goes for the big-money notes at the top."

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...The libretto (by Fritz Lohner-Beda and Alfred Grünwald, in a new English translation by Gerald Frantzen and Hersh Glagov) mixes operetta sentimentality and screwball comedy in the tale of an aristocrat's wife who (almost) cheats on her husband in revenge for his supposed infidelity. A farcical subplot involves a Turkish diplomat who falls for a free-spirited American songwriter. Racy stuff for its time, the work is quaint and even a bit sexist now, but a historically significant piece of musical theater nonetheless, and a wonderful vehicle for the superb soprano Alison Kelly as the (almost) unfaithful wife. Frantzen, Kelly's spouse, is in fine tenor voice as the husband, and the chorus and orchestra are excellent."

ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...Come see this delightful operetta/ Broadway musical- you'll have fun and be blow-in away by the stage craft and voices of this most worthy troupe of artists. The Chicago arts community is enhanced by the craft of the creatives at Chicago Folks Operetta-their numerous English translations of German operetta give voice to those forgotten musical treats. Come see Ball At the Savoy to understand the wonder of these gems!"