Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 8 Madama Butterfly

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 12 True drama results from the collective impulse of all the arts to communicate in the most immediate way with a collective public. In this Drama, each separate art can only bare its utmost secret to their common public through a mutual connection with the other arts; the purpose being that each separate branch of art can only be fully attained by the reciprocal agreement and co-operation of all the branches in their common message. ” Richard Wagner, The Art-Work of the Future Work, work, work, work, work, work. ” Rihanna, ANTI Opera has conjured images of grandeur from its very beginnings in late-16 th -century Florence, but it’s worth remembering that the word “opera” itself simply means “work” in Italian. The labor of visionary composers and librettists continues to reward us today, whether we go to the opera as first-timers or veterans, with rigorous attention or tremendous relaxation. Richard Wagner considered each of his mature operas a Gesamtkunstwerk – literally, a “whole art work.” Indeed, one of the best reasons to attend performances by a company like Lyric Opera of Chicago is to hear great voices accompanied by a full orchestra while viewing the finest in design and stagecraft. In a modern age where life can feel so partitioned, opera’s generous, encompassing riches are more enticing and necessary than ever. I first attended a Lyric performance in 1994, hearing Sir Andrew Davis conduct the great British soprano Dame Felicity Lott in the company premiere of Richard Strauss’s Capriccio . I wanted to hear Aida as my first opera, but my grandmother considered it too long for a recent bar mitzvah boy, so she chose the shortest opera of the season. Dame Felicity’s singing was so rapturous and the orchestra was so textured that I was hooked for life (even if, at 13, I didn’t necessarily follow Strauss and librettist Clemens Krauss’s argument about the relative weights of music, text, dance, and theater in the creation and success of an opera). The power of opera is so immense that I felt these concerns on a subliminal level, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. Getting an early start with opera taught me so many lessons about life that have sculpted me as person and prepared me for many of the important cultural conversations we are having in our society today. Speaking of Wagner, opera showed me that sometimes complicated people do exquisite things. While the inverse – wonderful people doing disagreeable things – is also a reality, we as modern humans By Doug Peck The power of opera… …and how it can change your life In Strauss’s Capriccio , the artistry of Dame Felicity Lott (pictured here as Countess Madeleine, with Gerald Finley as the Count) captivated this article’s author in his first Lyric performance, 1994|95 season. Dan Rest “There are so many moments in my life,” writes Doug Peck, “both of joy and of adversity, when I’ve thought, “‘What would Fidelio ’s Leonore do? How would the title character of The Marriage of Figaro handle this?’” Karita Mattila is pictured as Leonore (2004|05) and Adam Plachekta as Figaro (2015|16). Todd Rosenberg (Figaro) Dan Rest (Fidelio) “ “