Lyric Opera of Chicago
Encyclopedia
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
companies in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was founded in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox
Carol Fox (Chicago opera)
Carol Fox was, at the age of 28, the first impresario of the Chicago Lyric Opera and credited with restoring Chicago's pre-Depression operatic glory....
, Nicolà Rescigno
Nicola Rescigno
Nicola Rescigno was an Italian-American conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory. Opera News said that "Rescigno was a seminal figure in the history of opera in America, a maestro and mentor who shaped the destiny and reputation of two major U.S...
and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
's American debut in Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one the major opera companies in the United States.
Opera in Chicago 1850-1951
The first opera to be performed in Chicago was Bellini's La SonnambulaLa sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
, presented by a travelling opera company on 29 July 1850. Chicago's first opera house opened in 1865 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in 1870. The second opera house, the Chicago Auditorium, opened in 1889. In 1929 the current Civic Opera House on 20 North Wacker Drive was opened, though the Chicago Civic Opera
Chicago Civic Opera
The Civic Opera Company was a Chicago company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in the Auditorium Theater from 1922 to 1928, and three seasons at its own Civic Opera House from 1929 to 1931 before falling victim to financial difficulties brought on in part by the Great Depression.-...
Company itself collapsed in the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. The old Auditorium continued to produce stage shows and musicals till it closed in 1941.
Lyric Opera, 1952 to 1980
Fox, America's first female opera impressario at the age of 28, began her first season in 1954 by bringing Maria CallasMaria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
for her American debut in the title role of Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, the first of many electrifying Callas performances in Chicago. However, this first eight-opera season in 1954 was not the result of a long apprenticeship in opera production; Carol Fox, fluent in Italian and French, had studied opera singing for many years, culminating in two years of intensive work in Italy. However, when she realized that performance was not to be in her future, she decided that it lay in bringing the performances of the world's finest artists to her home town of Chicago. Her success can be measured in one statistic regarding the filling of the Lyric's Civic Opera House: in 1954, the season ran for three weeks; in 2007-2008 the Lyric had an almost six-month season.
Fox also used her formidable persuasive powers on artists other than singers: she was able to bring Rudolph Nureyev to make his debut on an American opera stage at the Lyric; Vera Zorina
Vera Zorina
Vera Zorina was a Norwegian ballerina, musical theatre actress and choreographer.-Background:Vera Zorina was born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Berlin, Germany. Her father Fritz was a German and her mother Billie Hartwig was Norwegian. Both were professional singers...
, Alicia Markova
Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, DMus, was an English ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the...
, Erik Bruhn
Erik Bruhn
Erik Belton Evers Bruhn was a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer, company director, actor, and author.- Biography :...
and Maria Tallchief
Maria Tallchief
Maria Tallchief was the first native-American prima ballerina. From 1942 to 1947 she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but she is best known for her time with the New York City Ballet from 1947 to 1965.-Early life:...
also danced at the Lyric, and George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
created choreography for the Lyric. The Italian composer Pino Donati
Pino Donati
Pino Donati was an Italian composer and for many years artistic director of the Chicago Lyric Opera.From 1936 he was superintendent of the Arena di Verona and then from 1950 the Teatro Comunale of Bologna...
was her artistic director. Bruno Bartoletti
Bruno Bartoletti
Bruno Bartoletti is an Italian operatic conductor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory and contemporary works....
was principal conductor, but other conductors included Tullio Serafin
Tullio Serafin
-Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire...
, Dimitri Mitropoulos and Artur Rodzinski
Artur Rodzinski
Artur Rodziński was a Polish conductor of opera and symphonic music. He is especially noted for his tenures as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in the 1930s and 1940s.-Biography:...
. Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...
and Sir George Solti chose the Lyric for their American operatic debuts. Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
staged operas as did Harold Prince.
Because of her illnesses and her refusal to lower her artistic standards despite the Lyric's dire financial state in 1980, her resignation was sought and given. Carol Fox died a few months later, survived by a daughter Victoria.
It was of the Lyric's founder that Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
wrote in 1979: "Miss Fox will be remembered, together with Jane Addams of Hull House and Harriet Monroe of Poetry magazine, as one of Chicago's greatest women."
Throughout the many years at the Lyric, Carol Fox developed the confidence and authority to bring the following world-famous artists to the Lyric: Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
(56 performances in 7 roles), Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.-Biography:Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome...
, Eleanor Steber
Eleanor Steber
Eleanor Steber was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States.-Biography:...
, Jussi Björling
Jussi Björling
Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th Century, Björling appeared frequently at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as well as at other major European opera...
, Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson
right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
, Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period...
, Giuseppe di Stefano
Giuseppe Di Stefano
Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...
, Giulietta Simionato
Giulietta Simionato
Giulietta Simionato was an Italian mezzo-soprano. Her career spanned from the 1930s until her retirement in 1966.-Life:Born at Forlì, Romagna, she studied in Rovigo and Padua, and made her operatic debut at Montagnana in 1928...
, Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker
Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...
, Boris Christoff
Boris Christoff
Boris Christoff was a Bulgarian opera singer...
, Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell was an American soprano who had a nearly 60 year long career performing both classical and popular music in concerts, theatres, on radio and television, and on disc. While she was active as an opera singer, her concert engagements far outnumbered her theatrical appearances...
, Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten was an American operatic soprano.-Biography:...
, Leonie Rysanek
Leonie Rysanek
Leopoldine "Leonie" Rysanek was an Austrian dramatic soprano.-Biography:Rysanek was born in Vienna and made her operatic debut in 1949 in Innsbruck. In 1951 the Bayreuth Festival reopened and the new leader Wieland Wagner asked her to sing Sieglinde...
, Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
, Geraint Evans
Geraint Evans
Sir Geraint Llewellyn Evans was a Welsh baritone or bass-baritone noted for operatic roles including Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, and the title roles in Falstaff and Wozzeck...
, Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni, birth name Mirella Fregni, is an Italian opera soprano whose repertoire includes Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Tchaikovsky...
, Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov
Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous bass singers of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Verdi.Ghiaurov married the Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978...
, Alfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was a distinguished Spanish tenor of partly Austrian descent, particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles...
, Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
, Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...
, Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
, Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature...
, Jon Vickers
Jon Vickers
Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC , known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto...
, Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
, Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry , an American opera singer, is considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation, as well as a major soprano for many years...
, Monserrat Caballe, Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent.-Early life:...
, Sherill Milnes, Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, Felicia Weathers
Felicia Weathers
Felicia Weathers is a well known internationally opera and concert singer . Born in St. Louis, Missouri .Made appearances in Zurich , Vienna , Munich, Berlin, Hamburg , Paris , Oslo , Kopenhagen , Stockholm , Covent Garden in London , Mailänder Scala and Metropolitan Opera House, New York...
and Jose Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
. Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo
Anna Moffo was an Italian-American opera singer and one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation...
also chose the Lyric for her American debut.
Later adminstrations, 1981 to the present
Carol Fox was succeeded at the Lyric by her longtime assistant manager, Ardis KrainikArdis Krainik
Ardis Joan Krainik was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer who was the general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago for 15 years...
(1981–1996), after whom the opera house was named, and then by William Mason (1997–2011). Mason held the position of General Director for over 40 years until Anthony Freud took over in October 2011.
Sir Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis (conductor)
Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE is a British conductor.Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire to Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence J. née Badminton, Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford. Davis attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied classics in his sixth form years...
is Lyric's music director and principal conductor, a post he has occupied since in September 2000. He led three complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
in the 2004-2005 season to mark the company's 50th anniversary. Danny Newman
Danny Newman
Danny Newman was the long-time press agent for the Lyric Opera of Chicago from its founding in 1954 until his retirement in 2002...
was the company's long-time press agent from 1954 until his retirement in the 2001/02 season; Newman is largely credited as the founder of subscription-based arts marketing, the standard economic model for not-for-profit arts organizations in the United States. Philip David Morehead
Philip David Morehead
Philip David Morehead is the Head of Music Staff of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, and the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center...
is head of music staff.
Production history
In addition to the standard operatic repertoire, Lyric also presents contemporary works. Recent productions have included Harbison'sJohn Harbison
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...
The Great Gatsby (2000–2001), Weill's
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
Street Scene
Street Scene (opera)
Street Scene is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill , Langston Hughes , and Elmer Rice...
(2001–2002), and Floyd's
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
Susannah
Susannah
Susannah is an opera in two acts by American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending...
and Sondheim's
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd (musical)
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and libretto by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond....
(2002–2003), and John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
' Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on 1 October 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb was...
directed by Peter Sellars.
Composer William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
wrote his most recent opera for Lyric, A Wedding
A Wedding (opera)
A Wedding is a comic opera based on Robert Altman's 1978 film A Wedding and was composed by William Bolcom with a libretto written by Robert Altman and Arnold Weinstein.-Performance History:...
, based on the 1978 film of the same name directed by Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
. It premiered during Lyric's 50th-anniversary season.
The Lyric Opera productions were broadcast and nationally syndicated by WFMT
WFMT
WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz). The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service ...
Radio Network, from 1971 until 2001. The broadcasts ceased then because of a labor dispute with the Chicago Federation of Musicians, American Guild Musical Artists and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, over broadcast fees for musicians. The dispute was resolved at the 11th hour for the October 21, 2006 premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's opera Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
starring Deborah Voigt
Deborah Voigt
Deborah Voigt is an American operatic soprano. Voigt regularly performs in opera houses and concert halls worldwide.- Early life and education :...
.
Syndicated broadcast of the Lyric Opera resumed in May 2007 on the WFMT
WFMT
WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz). The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service ...
network, which includes XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
.
Civic Opera House
- For details, see Civic Opera HouseCivic Opera House (Chicago)The Civic Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings. This structure opened on November 4, 1929 and has an Art Deco interior....
The company's permanent home is the Civic Opera House
Civic Opera House (Chicago)
The Civic Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings. This structure opened on November 4, 1929 and has an Art Deco interior....
, a building which it rented from 1954 until after the 1993 renovations. It is a 1929 structure with an Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
interior. Its 3,563-seat capacity makes it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
after the Metropolitan Opera House
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City. The interior was named The Ardis Krainik Theatre in 1996 in honor of Ardis Krainik, the former General Director, who was responsible for its renovation from 1993 onwards.
The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center
The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center (formerly Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, 1981–2006), established in 1974 by Carol Fox, is the professional artist-development program for Lyric Opera of Chicago.The Ryan Opera Center is considered one of the most prestigious vocal programs in America,
and has produced a number of notable singers. A few of the Ryan Opera Center's many acclaimed alumni include:
- Harolyn BlackwellHarolyn BlackwellHarolyn Blackwell is an African-American lyric coloratura soprano who has performed in many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, recitals, and Broadway musicals...
- Nicole CabellNicole CabellNicole Cabell , is an American opera singer. She is presently best known as the 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition....
- David Cangelosi
- Andriana Chuchman
- Mark S. DossMark S. DossMark Steven Doss is a Grammy Award-winning African-American bass-baritone, specializing in opera, concert and recital...
- Christopher Feigum
- Elizabeth FutralElizabeth FutralElizabeth Futral is an American coloratura soprano who has won acclaim throughout the United States as well as in Europe, South America, and Japan....
- Roger Honeywell
- Joseph KaiserJoseph KaiserJoseph Kaiser is a Canadian operatic tenor. In 2005 he won 2nd prize in Placido Domingo's Operalia International Opera Competition. He has performed as a soloist with the New York Metropolitan Opera, making his debut in 2007....
- Maria Kanyova
- Quinn Kelsey
- Dina Kuznetsova
- Gary LehmanGary LehmanGary Lehman is an American operatic tenor, specialising in the Heldentenor repertoireHe initially trained as a baritone at Youngstown State University, continued his studies at Indiana University, and as a member of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists gave 90 performances with the Lyric...
- Emily Magee
- Marlin Miller
- Susanna PhillipsSusanna PhillipsSusanna Phillips is a soprano opera singer. She has appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera, among others. Though born in Birmingham, Alabama she and her family moved two weeks after she was born, to Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama; where she grew up and attended...
- Matthew PolenzaniMatthew PolenzaniMatthew Polenzani is an American lyric tenor, born in Evanston, Illinois. He has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Seattle Opera, and other companies. He has also sung with numerous symphony orchestras. Polenzani earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Illinois University in...
- Franco Pomponi
- Wayne Tigges
- Amber Wagner
- Erin WallErin WallErin Wall is a Canadian operatic soprano.She studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music, Western Washington University, Rice University and Music Academy of the West and was a finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in Wales in 2003, a competition where 951 singers from 56 nations...
- Guang Yang
|}
Approximately a dozen young singers are selected from the near 400 who audition annually, and they are in residence for twelve months. Over the course of the year they receive advanced instruction in numerous aspects of operatic performance, including voice lessons and coachings, language and acting training, and master classes with some of opera’s most renowned artists. The singers gain valuable performing experience by participating in recitals and concerts at many Chicago-area venues. During Lyric Opera’s mainstage season, they perform and understudy roles at all levels. The singers work with the world’s greatest opera singers, conductors, and directors, thus advancing the young artists’ professionalism. In 2005, author William Murray
William Murray (writer)
William Murray was an American fiction editor and staff writer at The New Yorker for more than thirty years. He wrote a series of mystery novels set in the world of horse racing, many featuring Shifty Lou Anderson, a professional magician and horseplayer...
wrote a book about a year in the life of an entering class at the Ryan Opera Center.
Andrew Foldi
Andrew Foldi
Andrew Foldi was an Hungarian-American bass baritone and educator whose singing career spanned four decades.Born in Budapest, Hungary and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Foldi made his professional debut in 1954, as Biondello in Vittorio Giannini's The Taming of the Shrew at Lyric Opera of Chicago...
was Director of the Ryan Opera Center from 1991 to 1995. He was succeeded by Richard Pearlman
Richard Pearlman
Richard Pearlman was an American theatre and opera director and educator known for his encyclopedic knowledge on every aspect of opera from stage direction to makeup....
, who was Director of the program from 1995 until his death in 2006. Renowned soprano Gianna Rolandi
Gianna Rolandi
Gianna Rolandi is an American soprano. Following a highly successful 20-year national and international operatic career, Rolandi retired from performing in 1994, and is currently director of and principal instructor at the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Patrick G. and Shirley W...
, who had been the Ryan Opera Center's Director of Vocal Studies and principal instructor since 2002, was appointed Director of the program in 2006.
External links
- Lyric Opera of Chicago website
- Profile at Centerstage Chicago
- Chicago Landmarks: Civic Opera Building
- Ardis Krainik interview by Bruce Duffie
- Fortissimo: Backstage at the Opera with Sacred Monsters and Young Singers, by William MurrayWilliam Murray (writer)William Murray was an American fiction editor and staff writer at The New Yorker for more than thirty years. He wrote a series of mystery novels set in the world of horse racing, many featuring Shifty Lou Anderson, a professional magician and horseplayer...
, 2006. A study of a year in the life of an entering class at Lyric Opera Center for American Artists. - May Valentine Lyric Opera Photograph Collection at Newberry LibraryNewberry LibraryThe Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...