Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Issue 4 Florencia en el Amazonas

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 8 Welcome to Florencia en el Amazonas . Lyric Opera of Chicago is proud to present the company premiere of this gorgeous and mystical work by Mexican composer Daniel Catán. It is the first Spanish-language work performed as part of our mainstage season. In 2013, Lyric brought the mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna to both the Lyric Opera House and the surrounding community and subsequently commissioned its sequel El Pasado Nunca Se Termina two seasons later. For the last few years, Lyric has been assembling the ideal cast and production of Florencia en el Amazonas to present the stunning work that you are now about to see. It is a world of magical realism inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera . Florencia en el Amazonas has been mounted by more than a dozen U.S. opera companies, as well as companies in Mexico and Europe. We are so thrilled to introduce this piece to Chicago. At its core, opera is the melding together of the greatest art forms: music, theatrical intensity, visual spectacle, thrilling dance, and powerful storytelling. As we enjoy this season’s first of three contemporary opera company premieres, we celebrate the breadth and range of these stories expressed by diverse artists, from a timeless journey along the Amazon to the dark challenges of a 19th-century Nebraska homestead to a coming-of-age journey in Louisiana at the end of the 20th century. Lyric is committed to bringing newworks to Chicago that give voice to a wide array of human experiences with universal resonance. This is the great power of opera; through music and drama, it shines a lens on the core of what it means to be human. Thank you for joining us today for this magnificent adventure. We hope that it’s just one of many that you have with Lyric this season, and in groundbreaking seasons to come. Opera Forever! Lyric Forever! From the Chair and the General Director SYLVIA NEIL Chair ANTHONY FREUD OBE President, General Director & CEO The Women’s Board Endowed Chair Todd Rosenberg Todd Rosenberg