Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 3 Luisa Miller

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 8 From the Chairman and the General Director DAVID T. ORMESHER Chairman ANTHONY FREUD General Director, President & CEO The Women’s Board Endowed Chair Welcome to Lyric! We’re delighted that you’re joining us for the opening of what is sure to be a season of tremendously exciting productions and glorious music-making. One of the most memorable experiences operagoers can have is hearing a great work for the first time. This will true be for the majority of our audience with Luisa Miller , which Lyric has presented only once before. We’re delighted that this wonderful opera is returning to our stage, particularly since it inaugurates a very exciting development in the life of our company: an exploration of works from the early career of Giuseppe Verdi. Over the next few seasons Lyric will be presenting one early Verdi work per season, in productions that will bring them to life for a new generation of audiences. The riches of these pieces are boundless. In their melodies, their incredibly vivid characters, and their sweeping dramatic excitement, they’re simply irresistible. One very exciting element of this season’s Luisa Miller is the conducting of Enrique Mazzola, a truly exceptional artist who we are all thrilled to have joining us as Lyric’s music director designate. Enrique will succeed Sir Andrew Davis at the start of the 2021/22 season. Immensely respected and acclaimed internationally as an interpreter of a wide operatic repertoire, Enrique is particularly celebrated for works of Verdi and the bel canto composers. It’s wonderful that he comes to Luisa Miller with such remarkable distinction in the operas of Rossini and Donizetti, since this is the musical foundation on which Verdi built his early operas. Luisa Miller poses enormous challenges to singers. Consequently, it’s exciting to have such a superb group of Verdians in our cast, headed by Krassimira Stoyanova, Joseph Calleja, and Ryan Opera Center alumni Quinn Kelsey and Christian Van Horn. In Francesca Zambello’s vibrant production, Lyric’s Luisa Miller will launch our early-Verdi adventure in magnificent style. It’s a wonderful time to be part of Lyric. We’re producing more new types of work than ever before. Our musical-theater productions and other Lyric-produced special events are attracting tens of thousands of new patrons and we’re on the cusp of producing an extraordinary new Ring cycle. Lyric is a company striving to become a true visionary arts leader in Chicago and throughout America. The real measure of success is how often and in howmany different ways people choose to interact with Lyric. The opera house is our home, but our mission is to engage people where they are, reflecting the city and communities we serve. This means making the entire experience welcoming and engaging by looking at the performance through a variety of lenses. Our goal is to provide newways to ensure that our audiences’ initial encounter with Lyric is so impactful and entertaining that new patrons will make Lyric a part of their lives. By focusing on building our audience of the future, while we continue to serve our current audiences, we’ll ensure that both Lyric and opera itself remain culturally relevant and artistically important for the next generation. We hope you feel the drumbeat of progress at Lyric as much as we do. Together we are all part of the Lyric story.