Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 3 Luisa Miller

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 22 Standard Awards, the Golden Mask from Russia, the Russian Medal for Service to Culture, and the San Francisco Opera Medal. ( See Director’s Note, p. 31 ) MICHAEL YEARGAN | SET DESIGNER Previously at Lyric: Nine productions since 1991/92, most recently Rigoletto (2017/18); Romeo and Juliet , Nabucco (both 2015/16). The American designer has worked in opera for four decades. He has created sets (and sometimes costumes) for many major American companies, among them the Metropolitan Opera (12 productions to date) and San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, and Washington opera companies, as well as the Glimmerglass Festival, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Frankfurt Opera, and Opera Australia. Since 1990/91 he has designed for London’s Royal Opera. This season Yeargan designs the Met’s new Porgy and Bess , and his work will also be seen at the Berlin State Opera ( Rigoletto ) and Tulsa Opera ( Madama Butterfly ). He has designed many Broadway productions winning Tony Awards for The Light in the Piazza (2005) and South Pacific (2008). Yeargan has also designed numerous productions off-Broadway and for regional U. S. theaters. He is resident set designer at the Yale Repertory Theatre and Professor of Stage Design at the Yale School of Drama. DUNYA RAMICOVA | COSTUME DESIGNER Previously at Lyric: Doctor Atomic (2007/08); Tannhäuser (1988/89); The Mikado (1983). A native of the former Czechoslovakia, the designer has created costumes for the Metropolitan Opera (world premieres of Philip Glass’s The Voyage and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy , Verdi’s I Lombardi alla prima crociata, company premiere), San Francisco Opera (John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, world premiere), Seattle Opera, London’s Royal Opera, and the Glyndebourne and Salzburg festivals. She has also designed for the Guthrie Theater, Lincoln Center, Public Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Goodman Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and many others. Her longtime collaboration with Peter Sellars includes all of Ramicova’s Lyric productions, as well as the premieres of John Adams’s El Niño , Nixon in China , and The Death of Klinghoffer , Tan Dun’s The Peony Pavilion , and Olivier Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise . Ramicova, who has taught costume design and related subjects at Yale, Harvard, USC/Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, is a founding faculty member of the University of California campus in Merced. Dunya Ramicova is supported by the Richard P. and Susan Kiphart Costume Designer Endowed Chair . MARK M C CULLOUGH | LIGHTING DESIGNER Previously at Lyric: West Side Story (2018/19); Porgy and Bess (2014/15, 2008/09); Show Boat (2011/12). The lighting designer’s most notable achievements include productions at the Metropolitan Opera ( The Marriage of Figaro ), Vienna Staatsoper ( Macbeth , to be reprised there this season), Bolshoi Theatre ( La traviata ), Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts ( Les contes d’Hoffmann ), La Scala ( Cyrano de Bergerac ), Madrid’s Teatro Real ( Luisa Miller ), and London’s Royal Opera ( The Queen of Spades ); the major companies of Washington, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, San Diego, and St. Louis; and Bard College’s Fisher Center and the Glimmerglass Festival. Among McCullough’s extensive theater credits internationally are the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar (Broadway and U.K. tour); Whistle Down the Wind (Aldwych Theatre, London); The White Devil and Don Carlos (Royal Shakespeare Company); Der Besuch der alten Dame (Ronacher Theatre, Vienna); Artus (St. Gallen, Switzerland) and Rebecca (St. Gallen, Stuttgart’s Palladium Theater); and numerous off-Broadway productions. McCullough’s regional- theater work has been seen at many of this country’s most distinguished companies. Mark McCullough is supported by the Mary-Louise and James S. Aagard Lighting Director Endowed Chair . MICHAEL BLACK | CHORUS MASTER The Australian chorus master held this position in Sydney at Opera Australia from 2001 to 2013. Black has served in this capacity for such distinguished organizations as the Edinburgh International Festival, Opera Holland Park (London), and, in Australia, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Choir, Motet Choir, Cantillation chamber choir, and with Sir AndrewDavis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Recent activities include preparing the Damnation of Faust chorus at the Grant Park Music Festival, where he has worked for two seasons. As one of Australia’s most prominent vocal accompanists, Black has regularly performed for broadcasts and recordings (including numerous appearances on Australian Broadcast Corporation programs). He has served as chorus master on four continents, and his work has been recorded and/or aired on ABC, BBC, PBS, for many HD productions in movie theaters, and on television. He has also been a lecturer at his alma mater , the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Michael Black is the Howard A. Stotler Chorus Master Endowed Chair .