John Adams’s Doctor Atomic will receive its Chicago premiere when it opens this Friday at the Lyric Opera. Peter Sellars, the opera’s director and librettist, recently spoke with the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune about the piece. Doctor Atomic examines the events leading up to the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It goes behind the scenes of the Manhattan Project, where J. Robert Oppenheimer and a team of scientists worked under the pressures and the paranoia of the Cold War to launch the bomb and, subsequently, the Nuclear Age.

Jardim Abandonado, the latest album from Sérgio and Odair Assad, was reviewed in today's edition of All Things Considered on NPR. Says Banning Eyre, these "legends of the classical-guitar world" have done their instrument and their precursors proud. Listen to the review here.

Nominees for the 2007 Critics Choice Awards have been unveiled, and Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood are represented across six categories. Both films were nominated by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Picture, and both films' stars, Johnny Depp and Daniel Day-Lewis, respectively, received noms for Best Actor. Sweeney also grabbed nominations for Best Director (Tim Burton), Best Acting Ensemble, and Best Young Actor for Edward Sanders. There Will Be Blood adds a Best Composer nomination for Jonny Greenwood's score.

Youssou N'Dour performed the closing show of his current US tour before a sold-out crowd at the Somerville Theatre, outside Boston. According to the Herald, "the singer with the astounding pipes" led the audience through "two sweaty, dance-inducing hours" of songs throughout his career, including his latest album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). And by the end of the show, writes the Herald's Bob Young, "N’Dour left no doubt that he—and Africa—still rule the world of scintillating powerhouse grooves." In last night's tour closer, "N’Dour showed why he’s one of pop music’s most commanding performers."

"It's bloody wonderful." That's how David Ansen describes the Tim Burton–directed Sweeney Todd in the latest issue of Newsweek. Ansen finds the film to be faithful to the Stephen Sondheim musical, itself the source of "some of the most beautiful, witty and disturbing songs in the musical-theater canon." Time says: "Burton and Depp infuse the brilliant cold steel of Stephen Sondheim's score with a burning passion." The Hollywood Reporter says that "the show couldn't have fallen into better hands ... Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages." Billboard exclaims: "Johnny Depp is pretty much perfect."

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton grace the cover of New York magazine's Best of 2007 issue this week, which wittily names the duo's film version of Sweeney Todd "The Best Serial Killer Musical Ever!" Inside the magazine is a more serious evaluation from critic David Edelstein of "Tim Burton's brilliantly intense adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's great musical." Edelstein compliments Depp and his co-star Helena Bonham Carter for their "riveting" performances and Burton for filming the duo "with such loving intimacy that their fever takes hold."

Stephin Merritt played DJ to an eclectic crowd last night at London's George & Dragon pub. The photo here captures Merritt at the helm, conveniently positioned in front of a poster for The Magnetic Fields' upcoming Nonesuch release, Distortion, out in January:

The LA Film Critics Association has named There Will Be Blood the best picture of the year and its director, Paul Thomas Anderson, and star, Daniel Day-Lewis, best in their categories as well. Now, critics on the East Coast are adding their praise, too. In this week's New Yorker, David Denby calls the film "an enthralling and powerfully eccentric American epic ... magnificent."

When Wilco plays to a hometown crowd for five nights this February, it'll be changing things up a bit. Each night, the band will play a different set, featuring songs from throughout its decade-plus career. Or, as frontman Jeff Tweedy says in Billboard, the band will "attempt the 'complete Wilco' and try to clear out the dusty corners of the catalog that we haven't attended to in a while." The Chicago sets will take place February 15–16 and 18–20. They mark the start of a US tour that will take the band through the Northeast and the South before returning to the Midwest in March.

Next week, PBS offers a very different way to celebrate the holiday season when it airs the Los Angeles Opera's 2007 production of the 1930 Brecht/Weill opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Starting Monday, December 17, Great Performances will broadcast the opera, starring Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone. John Doyle, who directed LuPone in the recent Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, helmed this production of the work, which PBS calls a "savage and lyrical satire told in a highly entertaining blend of opera and raucous music hall songs."

As Youssou N'Dour prepares for the last stop on his US tour, tonight at the Somerville Theatre, the Boston Globe's Siddhartha Mitter reflects on the impact the "wildly talented" singer/songwriter has had as a key figure in contributing to and re-defining the genre of world music. "[H]is own work, exemplified by his newest album, Rokku Mi Rokka, and its 2005 predecessor, Egypt, is as fresh and searching as it has been in years." The Globe's Tristram Lozaw's review of the new album calls it "a defining album that showcases N'Dour at his organic best."

Fans of The Wire in New York City this Thursday may want to head down to J&R Music across from City Hall Park: cast members from the acclaimed HBO show will be on hand to sign copies of the newly released DVDs of Season Four. Slated to be in store on December 13 at 12:30 are Chad Coleman ("Cutty" Wise), Jermaine Crawford ("Dukie" Weems), Julito McCullum (Namond Brice), and Tristan Wilds (Michael Lee).