Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 9 La Traviata

P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O 26 | February 16 - March 22, 2019 Cities Ballet, and e Minnesota Opera, among numerous other companies. He embraces dance as a spiritual practice and uses the arts, in conjunction with his passion for social justice, to inspire revolu- tionary change. MICHELLE REID Previously at Lyric: e Pearl Fishers (2017/18). e dancer is an Ohio native currently residing in Chicago after receiving her B. F. A. in dance from e Ohio State University. She is an artist with focus in dance, photography and the circus arts. She has performed with Aerial Dance Chicago (Aerial Dance RAW, Spring To Dance Festival, 2017, Ghost Stories , 2016), Joel Hall Dancers (Nuts and Bolts, 2014, Anja: the unexpected, 2017 ) , Emerald City eatre (Dragons Love Tacos, 2015 ) , and Banks Performance Project (winter showcase 2018). Reid is also a dance educator who has taught and choreographed for outreach programs such as the Alvin Ailey Camp, Asian Youth Services, and is currently a faculty member at Joel Hall Dancers & Center. BENJAMIN HOLLIDAY WARDELL Lyric debut Founder and creative director of e Cambrians, the Chicago-based dancer began his career with e Cincinnati Ballet and was seen extensively with Alonzo King’s LINES (San Francisco) and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago before turning freelance. He performs with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, has toured internationally with Aszure Barton and Artists, and has created work with Ron de Jesus Dance. In Miami he recently performed a full-act solo that he co-created with conductor Michael Tilson omas and choreographer Pat Birch. He also collaborates frequently with opera director James Darrah. Wardell received a 2014 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award and a 2015 Lab Artist Award from Chicago Dancemakers Forum. MICHAEL CHRISTIE (Conductor) Lyric debut e American conductor is equally at home in the sym- phonic and opera worlds, and is focused on making the audience experience entertaining, enlightening, and enriching. Christie was featured in Opera News in August 2012 as one of 25 people expected to “break out and become major forces in the field in the coming decade.” At e Minnesota Opera, Christie led 24 productions over eight years, six seasons as its first-ever music director (2012 to 2018). Recent world-premiere performances include An American Soldier by Huang Ruo with Opera eatre of Saint Louis in 2018 and e (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates with e Santa Fe Opera in 2017. Christie has served as music director of the Phoenix Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Colorado Music Festival, and as chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra in Australia, as well as making guest appearances around the world. He first came to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize for “Outstanding Potential” at the First International Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in Helsinki. Following the competition, he was invited to become an apprentice conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra where he subsequently worked with Daniel Barenboim, as well as at the Berlin State Opera during the 1996/97 season. ARIN ARBUS (Director) Previously at Lyric: La traviata (2013/14). For over a decade Arin Arbus served as the associate artistic director of eatre for a New Audience, where she direct- ed e Winter’s Tale, e Skin of Our Teeth (Obie Award), repertory productions of Strindberg’s e Father and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, as well as King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, e Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, and Othello . She staged Britten’s e Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera and La traviata at Canadian Opera Company (8 Dora Award nominations), Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Houston Grand Opera. She was a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Princess Grace Award Recipient, a Samuel H. Scripps Award Recipient, and spent several years making theatre with prisoners at a medium security prison in upstate New York in association with Rehabilitation rough the Arts. Last summer she directed an adaptation of e Tempest in a refugee camp in Greece for e Campfire Project. (See page 34 for a conversation with the director.) RICCARDO HERNANDEZ (Set Designer) Previously at Lyric: La traviata (2013/14); Anthony Davis’s Amistad (world premiere, 1997/98). e renowned designer’s work has been seen in more than 250 productions at leading regional theaters and opera companies across America and internationally. In addition to La traviata (Lyric, Houston Grand Opera, Canadian Opera Company), his operatic credits include Don Giovanni (Chicago Opera eater, e Santa Fe Opera), La bohème and Sweeney Todd (both for Opera eatre of Saint Louis), and the world pre- mieres of Ricky Ian Gordon’s A Coffin in Egypt (Houston), Philip Glass’s Appomattox (San Francisco), Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun (New York City Opera), and e Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Broadway), among many other productions. His close association with the New York Shakespeare Festival includes most recently Cymbeline and e Tempest . In New York Hernandez has also designed for eatre for a New Audience, Studio 54, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, the Atlantic eater, Second Stage, the Manhattan eatre Club, and Playwrights Horizons. Regionally his work has been seen at American Repertory eater, the Guthrie, the Goodman, Huntington eater Company, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf, McCarter eater, Yale Repertory eater, and London’s National eatre ( Caroline or Change , winner of the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards). Hernandez is an assistant professor adjunct of design at Yale School of Drama. CAIT O’CONNOR (Costume and Puppet Designer) Previously at Lyric: La traviata (2013/14). e New York-based illustra- tor and painter, who also works as a costume designer for opera, dance, theater, and film, received the prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Award (Outstanding Costume Design) for La traviata , which has also been seen at Houston Grand Opera. She recently designed Hamlet for e Old Globe in San Diego. Among her other major projects have been Le rossignol (Canadian Opera Company); Inspiré (Cirque du Soleil); e Seagull (Anton’s Week LLC); Lie of the Mind, Romeo and Juliet, and Parade (all for Trinity Repertory eater); Titus Andronicus (Public eater); Balm in Gilead (Solo Foundation); e Witch of Edmonton (Red Bull eater); and other produc- tions for Rattlestick Playwrights eater, Free Play Festival, e Wooster Group, and Shakespeare in the Park, among many other venues. With Michael Curry, O’Connor designed large-scale puppets and interactive costumes for the Opéra National de Paris. She has exhibited work in New York galleries (including the Monique Goldstrom Gallery in Soho) and has partici- pated in the group exhibition “Wildly Different