Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 9 The Queen of Spades

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 14 From a remarkable new work, we return to a familiar favorite, Tosca , Puccini’s melodrama of love, lust, and revenge. The gifted American director Louisa Muller will create new staging in sets and costumes by the legendary Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and Franco Zeffirelli, respectively. Italian conductor Giampaolo Bisanti (Lyric debut) will lead a spectacular cast. “Tosca is one of Lyric favorite Sondra Radvanovsky’s most widely performed roles internationally,” says Freud, “and our audience hasn’t heard her sing it until now. Opposite her as Cavaradossi will be Joseph Calleja, truly one of today’s most renowned tenors, and as Scarpia we’ll welcome Fabian Veloz, a terrific Argentine baritone, in his Lyric debut.” For one performance, Cavaradossi and Tosca will be portrayed by a superb American duo, Russell Thomas and the fast-rising Alexandra LoBianco. Lyric’s early Verdi series will continue with a genuine barnstormer, Attila . “The whole idea of this series of productions,” notes Freud, “is to reintroduce audiences to pieces they haven’t heard for a long time and also to introduce other pieces for the first time at Lyric.” Singing the title role of the infamous “Scourge of God” will be a Russian bass who triumphed at Lyric in another early Verdi work, Nabucco – the mighty Dmitry Belosselskiy. Tamara Wilson, who made an enthralling Lyric debut in Verdi’s Il trovatore , will be the vengeful Odabella. Nicola Alaimo, previously applauded here as the comic Sancho in Don Quichotte , returns for a very different role, the Roman general Ezio, and Ryan Opera Center alumnus Matthew Polenzani will be Odabella’s love interest, Foresto, the third Verdi role at Lyric for this renowned lyric tenor. Lyric’s music director designate, Enrique Mazzola, who has scored great successes in Verdi worldwide, will conduct, and Daniele Abbado (son of the late, great conductor Claudio Abbado) will make his Lyric debut directing his acclaimed production from Bologna’s Teatro Comunale. Another excitingly grand-scale work, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila ( Samson and Delilah ) will make its eagerly awaited return after an absence of 17 years. Freud describes it as “a highly romantic take on the Bible story, with memorable tunes and wonderful spectacle. It’s the operatic equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille epic! You produce it only when you have artists who can deliver it in that spirit.” American tenor Brandon Jovanovich and French mezzo Clémentine Margaine will be “very exciting protagonists. The title roles are exceptionally demanding, and these two celebrated singers – each with huge presence, as well as huge vocal resources – will be stupendous together.” Elijah Moshinsky’s magnificent production, which originated at the Metropolitan Opera, will be conducted by Emmanuel Villaume, “a very distinguished interpreter of French opera who’s had many wonderful successes in that repertoire at Lyric,” notes Sir Andrew. Lyric will welcome the New Year with one of opera’s most effervescent comedies, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore ( The Elixir of Love ). In command on the podium will be debuting conductor Eun Sun Kim, who’s rapidly ascended to international prominence. She was recently named music director designate of San Francisco Opera. Director Daniel Slater, who created this production for Opera North (U.K.), sets the story at a charming hotel in postwar rural Italy, with hôtelière Adina longingly pursued by an earnest and naive waiter, Nemorino. The quack “doctor.” Dulcamara, arrives in a hot air balloon! “Daniel really relishes the wit of this opera,” says Freud, “and his production is totally entertaining in a funny, warmhearted way.” Leading Lyric’s top-flight cast will be the endearing Nemorino of Matthew Polenzani, a consummate Italian stylist singing one of his signature roles. “Nemorino’s aria, ‘Una furtiva lagrima,’ will be something we can all truly look forward to in Matthew’s performances,” says Sir Andrew. The production will reunite Polenzani with the ravishing Italian soprano Rosa Feola, who broke all hearts playing Gilda to the tenor’s Duke in Lyric’s 2017/18 Rigoletto . Feola will portray the feisty Adina, with the exuberant Nicola Alaimo as Dulcamara and, playing the boastful sergeant Belcore, the gifted young Polish baritone Andrzej Filonczyk in his Lyric debut. Next season’s concluding operas will give new evidence of Sir Andrew’s versatility. How fitting it is that he’ll conclude his tenure with works that mean so much to him. His relationship with Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro ( The Marriage of Figaro ) goes Samson and Delilah (Metropolitan Opera) ’ Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera