Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 3 Luisa Miller

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 21 SOLOMAN HOWARD | WURM Lyric debut The American bass returns to Lyric later this season as Fafner/ Ring cycle. He has sung Fafner/ Das Rheingold at L’Opéra de Montréal and Washington National Opera. Recent appearances include the Metropolitan Opera ( Aida , The Magic Flute ), LA Opera ( Don Carlo ), Opéra National de Bordeaux ( Simon Boccanegra ), San Francisco Opera ( Turandot ), and The Santa Fe Opera ( La bohème ). A graduate of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, he has appeared at WNO in The Magic Flute , Show Boat , Don Giovanni , Approaching Ali , The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me , Nabucco , and Philip Glass’s Appomattox . Future performances include English National Opera ( Luisa Miller ), Gran Teatre del Liceu ( The Barber of Seville ), and the Met ( The Magic Flute ). Recipient of the Kennedy Center’s 2019 Marian Anderson Vocal Award, Howard was recognized in 2016 by the Anti- Defamation League with its “Making a Difference Award” for raising awareness of voting rights and bringing opera into the larger community. ALISA KOLOSOVA | FEDERICA, DUCHESS OF OSTHEIM Previously at Lyric: Olga/ Eugene Onegin (2016/17). The Russian mezzo-soprano came to international attention at the 2010 Salzburg Whitsun Festival, singing Mozart’s Betulia liberata under the baton of Riccardo Muti. Between 2011 and 2014 she was a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble. Recent highlights include such stylistically diverse portrayals as Isoletta/ La straniera and Marina/ Boris Godunov (Amsterdam); Dalila/ Samson et Dalila (Basel); Maddalena/ Rigoletto (Munich, Rome); Suzuki/ Madama Butterfly (Hamburg); Samaritana/ Francesca da Rimini (La Scala); the Foreign Princess/ Rusalka (Paris) and Néris/ Médée . Later this season Kolosova will be heard in Munich ( Rigoletto, Nabucco ) and Amsterdam ( Eugene Onegin ). Greatly sought-after in concert repertoire, she has collaborated with such major conductors as Muti (Scriabin’s Symphony No. 1 and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky , Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass , Zurich), Gustavo Dudamel ( Glagolitic Mass , Los Angeles Philharmonic), Kazushi Ono (Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet , Netherlands Philharmonic), and Jérémie Rhorer (Verdi Requiem , Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the BBC Proms). KATHLEEN FELTY | LAURA Lyric debut The mezzo-soprano, a first-year Ryan Opera Center member, returns to the Lyric stage later this season in Die Walküre . A Texas native, she is an alumna of Texas Tech University and the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem). Her Fletcher performances included the title role/ La Cenerentola , Geneviève/ Impressions de Pelléas , Dinah/ Trouble in Tahiti , the Composer/ Ariadne auf Naxos , Paula/ Florencia en el Amazonas , Miss Jessel/ The Turn of the Screw , Charlotte/ Werther , and Unulfo/ Rodelinda . Felty is a former apprentice artist of The Santa Fe Opera, where she received the Katharine Mayer Award. She made her North Carolina Opera concert debut as Clotilde/ Norma and her Dayton Opera debut as Maddalena/ Rigoletto . She is a four-time District winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Kathleen Felty is sponsored by Heidi Heutel Bohn, Lawrence O. Corry, and Robert C. Marks . ENRIQUE MAZZOLA | CONDUCTOR Previously at Lyric: I puritani (2017/18); Lucia di Lammermoor (2016/17). The Italian conductor, Lyric’s music director designate, is renowned as an expert interpreter and champion of bel canto opera, and a specialist in French repertoire and early Verdi. He is principal guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and served as artistic and music director of the Orchestre National d’Île de France (2012-19). Symphonic guest work has included the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Brussels Philharmonic. Mazzola has conducted bel canto works for Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the major houses of Florence, Strasbourg, Berlin, Zurich, Moscow, and Tokyo, in addition to a historic Meyerbeer cycle for Deutsche Oper Berlin. Past major European festivals have included Glyndebourne (including DVD releases of The Barber of Seville and Poliuto ), new productions in 2019 for Bregenz ( Rigoletto ) and Salzburg ( Orphée aux Enfers ), Pesaro (Rossini Opera Festival), Venice, and Aix-en- Provence. The 2019/20 season also includes appearances with the Zurich Opera House ( Don Pasquale ), Deutsche Oper Berlin ( Le prophète, Dinorah ) and Glyndebourne ( L’elisir d’amore) . Enrique Mazzola’s appearance on the podium is generously sponsored by Patricia A. Kenney and Gregory J. O’Leary . FRANCESCA ZAMBELLO | DIRECTOR Previously at Lyric: Five productions since 1999/00, most recently West Side Story (2018/19); Porgy and Bess (2014/15, 2008/09); Show Boat (2011/12). General director of The Glimmerglass Festival and artistic director of Washington National Opera, Francesca Zambello has also served as artistic advisor to the San Francisco Opera and artistic director of Skylight Music Theatre. Last season she returned to SFO for Carmen and directed Glimmerglass’s Show Boat and La traviata . This season her productions will be seen in St. Paul ( The Barber of Seville ), Tulsa ( Madama Butterfly ), Atlanta and Washington ( Porgy and Bess ). Zambello has worked at more than 50 major opera houses and theaters worldwide, from Houston Grand Opera and the Metropolitan Opera to La Scala, Covent Garden, and the major houses of Paris, Munich, and Sydney. She is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and has received two French Grand Prix des Critiques, three Olivier Awards, two Evening