Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Special Issue: Verdi Voices

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 11 TAMARA WILSON | SOPRANO Previously at Lyric: Leonora/ Il trovatore (2018/19). Winner of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award and Grand Prize in the annual Francisco Viñas Competition, the Arizona-born dramatic soprano, who grew up in the Chicago area, has rapidly gained international recognition, particularly as the heroines of Verdi and Strauss. Recent highlights include her debut at Teatro La Fenice for Fidelio, and performances with the Bayerische Staatsoper for Ariadne auf Naxos . She will appear in LA Opera for St. Matthew Passion , Houston Grand Opera for Turandot , and The Cleveland Orchestra for Otello . She has previously triumphed in Il trovatore in Barcelona, Houston, Toulouse, and Mallorca. Other Verdi operas in her repertoire are I due Foscari (Toulouse, Santiago, Amsterdam), La forza del destino (London—Olivier Award nomination), Don Carlos (Houston, Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt), and Un ballo in maschera (Berlin, Washington). In the 2018/19 season, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera ( Aida ) and the Zurich Opera House (Chrysothemis/ Elektra ), and made her mainstage debut at La Scala (the Prima Donna and Ariadne/ Ariadne auf Naxo s, after appearing with the company in the Verdi Requiem in Pavia, Paris, and Hamburg). Her versatility extends to Don Giovanni (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra), Norma (Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu), Die Walküre (BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), and Die Fledermaus (in Japan under Ozawa). In demand for concert works, Wilson has made acclaimed appearances with the major orchestras of New York, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, London, and Amsterdam, among many others. She appears on CD with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Verdi’s Requiem and in the Frankfurt production of Die Frau ohne Schatten . RUSSELL THOMAS | TENOR Previously at Lyric: Manrico/ Il trovatore (2018/19), Pollione/ Norma (2016/17). The internationally celebrated American tenor starred earlier this season as Florestan in Fidelio for the San Francisco Opera. He will be featured at Lyric as Mario Cavaradossi in the forthcoming Tosca (2021/22), and later this season he returns to the title role/ Otello (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, after successes at the Washington National Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Atlanta Symphony). Thomas’s 2020/21 season included his return to Don Alvaro/ La forza del destino (Deutsche Oper Berlin), a concert of the title-role in Oedipus Rex with LA Opera and Cavaradossi in Tosca with Cincinnati Opera. He recently starred in Aida (Houston Grand Opera), Il trovatore (Bayerische Staatsoper), Idomeneo (Salzburg Festival, new Peter Sellars production), Roberto Devereux (San Francisco Opera), and La clemenza di Tito (LA Opera). Thomas has previously enjoyed great successes as Beethoven’s Florestan (Cincinnati); Bellini’s Pollione (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Valencia); Verdi’s Stiffelio (Frankfurt), Don Carlo (Washington, Berlin), and Gabriele Adorno (London); and Puccini’s Rodolfo (Met). He has been featured with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. ENRIQUE MAZZOLA | CONDUCTOR Lyric’s Music Director—only the third in the company’s history—is renowned as an expert interpreter and champion of bel canto opera and a specialist in French repertoire and early Verdi. Lyric audiences first experienced the Italian conductor’s artistry in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in 2016/17, and subsequently in Bellini’s I puritani in 2017/18. During Lyric’s 2019/20 season he led Verdi’s Luisa Miller to launch the company’s Early Verdi Series. Mazzola’s first opera as Lyric’s music director, Sir David McVicar’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth , opened the 2021/22 season, followed by Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love . Mazzola is Principal Guest Conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and served as Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestre National d’Île de France from 2012 to 2019. Symphonic guest work has included the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Brussels Philharmonic. He has conducted bel canto works for The Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs- Élysées, and the major houses of Florence, Strasbourg, Berlin, Zurich, Moscow, and Tokyo, in addition to a historic Meyerbeer cycle for Deutsche Oper Berlin. Past major European festivals have included Glyndebourne (including DVD releases of Il barbiere di Siviglia and Poliuto ), new productions in 2019 for Bregenz ( Rigoletto ) and Salzburg ( Orphée aux Enfers ), Pesaro (Rossini Opera Festival), Venice, and Aix-en-Provence. Mazzola was born in Barcelona, Spain, into a musical family, and grew up in Milan, where he studied violin and piano, earning diplomas in composition and orchestral conducting at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi of Milan. Enrique Mazzola is the John D. and Alexandra C. Nichols Endowed Chair. Artist profiles