CSO and The Goodman team up for a special turn on ‘The Soldier’s Tale’

It’s no surprise that the Chicago Symphony is showcasing principal players in performances Oct. 23-25 of Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale,  a cautionary fable of a young soldier who sells his treasured violin — and soul — to the devil. The work is scored for seven musicians and three actors. Its 16 episodes contain some of Stravinsky’s most sharp-edged, infectiously rhythmic music. 

Coming early in the 2025-26 season, it’s a perfect vehicle to reacquaint audiences with the artistry of CSO principal players Robert Chen (violin), Keith Buncke (bassoon), Alexander Hanna (bass), Esteban Batallán (trumpet), Stephen Williamson (clarinet), Cynthia Yeh (percussion) and Timothy Higgins (trombone).

British conductor Stefan Asbury, in his CSO debut, leads the all-Stravinsky program that opens with the composer’s Fanfare for a New Theater, Octet and the CSO’s first performances of his Septet.

Orchestras frequently perform a suite from The Soldier’s Tale as a purely orchestral piece. But these performances offer something rarer: a chance to see a semi-staged version of the full-length, hour-long work. And another rarity: a  collaboration between the CSO and another of Chicago’s most storied arts institutions, The Goodman.

Goodman has assembled a cast with its own star power. The Reader (narrator) will be Cindy Gold, a well-known Chicago actor whose extensive credits include a Jeff Award and numerous appearances in plays and musicals across the United States and beyond. She is currently winning praise as Gertrude Berg, the pioneering 1950s TV sitcom producer and star, in Northlight Theatre’s world premiere of  James Sherman’s The First Lady of Television.

Playing the Soldier, Joseph, is Jordan Arredondo, praised for his “stirring and gentle performance from offstage” in June in Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Noah Diaz’s You Will Get Sick. Joe Dempsey will portray the Devil.

Steve Scott, who is directing The Soldier’s Tale, was Goodman’s producer for more than 30 years and has worked throughout the the States and internationally. His credits include a Special Jeff Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Chicago Theatres.

Though he has directed more than 300 plays, musicals, operas and other kinds of theater pieces, this is his first encounter with Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. “Until I was called about this project,” he said in a recent video interview, “I didn’t know the piece at all. I don’t think I’d ever even heard of it.

“It’s a very different kind of piece from the things I usually do. It’s not a musical play. It’s not chamber music with narration. It’s basically mashing two things together: theater and theater story-telling and the musical ensemble. It’s unlike any other piece I have ever encountered, and that’s very exciting to me. I’m always looking for stuff that I haven’t done before, and this is absolutely that.”

The Soldier’s Tale, with a French libretto by Swiss author Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, had its world premiere in September 1918 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Eight years earlier, the 27-year-old Stravinsky had become an overnight sensation in Europe for his acclaimed new ballet, The Firebird, commissioned in 1910 for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Other high-profile ballets followed, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

By 1918, following the convulsions of World War I and the Russian Revolution in 1917, Stravinsky was in financial difficulties. He and Ramuz conceived The Soldier’s Tale as a kind of bus-and-truck show they could take from place to place for a few performances before packing it up and moving on. Despite the work’s successful premiere, those money-making plans quickly fell through.

“If it hadn’t been for the [1918-19] influenza pandemic,” said Scott, “Stravinsky would have done that. Because of the pandemic, it had an unfortunately short life in that iteration.”

The Soldier’s Tale may be uncharted territory for Scott, but he’s familiar with the CSO stage. Before Orchestra Hall’s extensive renovation in the mid-1990s, he produced semi-staged productions for the CSO’s programs for young audiences. They included Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde and Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With no side wings, the CSO stage is a challenging space for theater directors, but Scott is unfazed.

“Because I’ve done so much work in storefront theater,” he said with a wry smile, “there are a lot of tricks I’ve learned about how to make things work.”

But he’s happy that the 1990s renovation added rows of Terrace seating behind and above the orchestra.

“I was familiar with the old configuration, but this is much more flexible,” he said. “I’m thinking of using the upper loft for the Reader and some of the action, and then bringing the rest of the action down onstage on either side of the chamber ensemble.”

The Reader is a demanding speaking role. In addition to describing the Soldier’s journey, the Reader plays several different characters as well.

“I’ve worked with Cindy a number of times,” Scott said, “and she was the first one I thought of for the Reader. I cast her mostly because of her great emotional range, which is essential for this piece’s narrative voice. Also her vocal power — Symphony Center is a big stage, even with microphones. And her musical expertise — she often has to speak in precise rhythm with the orchestra. I was thrilled when she had this time open.”

A new English translation by Liz Diamond eliminates some of the original libretto’s outdated syntax, Scott said. But he is well aware that Stravinsky’s music must be the dominant voice. The seven players and Asbury will be probably be grouped centerstage, and he doesn’t expect the actors to intrude on their space.

“I’m trying to find ways to integrate the actors and the story and the orchestra without bothering the orchestra. It’s the Chicago Symphony, not Goodman Theatre," he said, giving a hearty laugh. “The musicians are there to make beautiful music, not to be strolling players somewhere.”