Elizabeth Cree presented by Chicago Opera Theater at The Studebaker Theater

Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended

"...Exuberantly staged and brilliantly performed by a 14-member ensemble of accomplished singing actors, this courtroom thriller/Gothic whodunit follows its titular anti-heroine through a series of tightly bound episodes that leap back and forth in time, mixing stylized shocks and gallows humor with Hitchcockian glee. Not since "Sweeney Todd" has operatic blood, guts and dismemberment been so entertaining."

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Mezzo-soprano Katherine Pracht and baritone Christopher Burchett are fully convincing as the resourceful title character and her complicated husband, and there’s a solid ensemble vibe from the entire cast, under the direction of David Schweizer. Geoff McDonald conducts the 20-piece orchestra. Sweeney Todd will come to mind, but this is even darker. Don’t bring the kids."

Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended

"...Through the 20th and 21st centuries, composers and librettists have pushed opera in exciting and unexpected directions, proving again the flexibility and richness of this enduring art form. A fresh example is Kevin Puts' "Elizabeth Cree," which offers something almost never seen before - a bloody, fast-action operatic thriller with a juicy plot twist."

Stage and Cinema - Recommended

"...Refracting and distorting its own artistry, Elizabeth Cree is very much an “inside job,” both accusation and exploitation of our larcenous lusts and our fascination with other people’s suffering. But, however spellbinding and sinister, ninety-five minutes of this pretty poison, with its contagious Schadenfreude, deliver deadly goods that strain the brain."

Picture This Post - Highly Recommended

"...Put's ethereal music, so different from the blaring brass heard at other points, and the designs by David Zinn and Alexander Nichols treat their search respectfully. In the end, Dan is left muttering "Logical, absurd, all get blurred, every word," but the audience has enjoyed a thrilling yarn which managed to be funny and horrifying. Chicago Opera Theater is rightly proud to have helped develop a new opera. This one is "modern" in the sense that it captured a distinctly contemporary outlook with music suited to opera buffs, musical lovers, and anyone who collects the soundtracks to movies."