Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Issue 7 Fire Shut Up My Bones

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 20 TERRENCE BLANCHARD | COMPOSER Lyric debut The celebrated American composer’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones premiered at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2019 and was staged at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, the first production by a Black composer in the company’s 136-year history. From his expansive work composing the scores for Spike Lee films ranging from the documentary 4 Little Girls to the epic Malcolm X , as well as his own discography of recordings such as A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) , the 2018 USA Fellow and six-time Grammy-winning trumpeter/ composer has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements concerning painful American tragedies—past and present. A brilliant trumpeter, Blanchard started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than 40 film scores and performed on more than fifty. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has won six Grammy Awards from 14 nominations. In 2019 he was named Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies at UCLA. KASI LEMMONS | LIBRETTIST Lyric debut A St. Louis native, renowned as both actress and film director, Lemmons made her acting debut in the television movie 11th Victim (1979). She has appeared extensively on television, and in such films as School Daze , Vampire’s Kiss , and The Silence of the Lambs . In 1997, Lemmons wrote and directed the award-winning Eve’s Bayou , the highest-grossing independent film in 1997. In 2002 she conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th annual Academy Awards show. In 2007, she directed Talk to Me , with Don Cheadle, receiving the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture. Lemmons adapted the Broadway musical Black Nativity and filmed it in 2013. Her 2019 film Harriet , a biographical film about Harriet Tubman, starring Cynthia Erivo, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. For the past 14 years Lemmons has been a board member of Film Independent and has contributed to Film Independent’s Filmmaker Labs as a speaker and moderator. LATONIA MOORE | BILLIE Lyric debut The American soprano sang the role of Billie in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Fire Shut in My Bones . She previously starred as Tosca at Washington National Opera, Austin Opera, Opera Australia, and the Opéra de Rouen. She made a triumphant Metropolitan Opera debut in March 2012 as Aida, and has subsequently sung that role with 12 other companies (among them London’s Royal Opera House, the Zurich Opera House, and Opera Australia), as well as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia. She returned to the Met in 2019/20, as Serena/ Porgy and Bess (HD transmission), which she has also sung at English National Opera and the Dutch National Opera. Additional operatic highlights include the title role/ Madama Butterfly (Met, Hamburg State Opera), Liù/ Turandot (Royal Opera House), Elisabetta/ Don Carlo (Opera Australia), and Desdemona/ Otello (Bergen National Opera). She has also been featured with Opera Orchestra of New York in L’arlesiana and Edgar , and she has sung Gershwin’s Bess with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Moore can be heard on CD as Lady Macbeth/ Macbeth and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. JACQUELINE ECHOLS | DESTINY, LONELINESS, GRETA Lyric debut The lyric soprano began the 2019/20 season at the Metropolitan Opera, first as Poussette/ Manon (company debut) and then as Musetta/ La bohème . Echols then portrayed Clara/ Porgy and Bess for her Atlanta Opera debut. In the 2018/19 season Echols returned to Washington National Opera as Violetta/ La traviata in Francesca Zambello’s new production. She later reprised that role in her debut at Palm Beach Opera. Following the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s 2017 season-opening gala concert, she returned to that orchestra for her first performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Also on the concert stage, she made her Memphis Symphony debut in Handel’s Messiah . A frequent performer of both standard and contemporary repertoire, Echols created Helen/ The Summer King in Pittsburgh Opera’s 2017 world premiere, later reprising the role in her hometown, Detroit, with Michigan Opera Theatre. She has portrayed Pip/Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick with the Los Angeles, Dallas, and Pittsburgh Operas, and Sister Rose/Heggie’s Dead Man Walking with Washington National Opera. Artist profiles