Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Rising Stars

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 6 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. KRISTINE M C INTYRE | DIRECTOR Lyric debut Stage director Kristine McIntyre has directed more than 100 operas across the U.S. with a focus on new, contemporary, and American works. Productions include Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's Moby Dick (Utah Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera San Jose); Dead Man Walking (Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Des Moines Metro Opera, Madison Opera); the world premieres of Louis Karchin and Diane Osen's Jane Eyre (Center for Contemporary Opera), Mark Lanz Weiser and Amy Punt's The Place Where You Started (Art Share, LA) and Celka Ojakanga and Amy Punt's Mirror Game ; new productions of Wozzeck , Billy Budd (regional Emmy award) and Peter Grimes as well as As One, Glory Denied and Soldier Songs (Des Moines Metro Opera, Urban Arias); Dove’s Flight (Pittsburgh Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Austin Opera), Heggie’s The End of the Affair (Lyric Opera of Kansas City) and Three Decembers (Des Moines Metro Opera); Florencia en el Amazonas (Madison Opera), Elmer Gantry (Tulsa Opera), Of Mice and Men (Utah Opera, Austin Opera, Tulsa Opera), the world premiere of Mechem’s John Brown (Lyric Opera of Kansas City); new productions of Street Scene , The Tender Land (Michigan Opera Theatre), Horovitz's Gentleman's Island (Utah Opera) and Hoiby's Bon Appétit ; and an updated English-language version of Poulenc's The Human Voice (Utah Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera), a staged concert version of Vanessa (Toledo Opera) and the world premiere of The Canticle of the Black Madonna (Newmark Theater, Portland). KATHERINE BECK | MEZZO-SOPRANO Previously at Lyric: Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22); Twilight: Gods (2020/21). Originally from Bennington, Vermont, second-year mezzo- soprano Katherine Beck was a 2020 semi-finalist in the Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition at the Metropolitan Opera, and was recipient of a prestigious George London Foundation Award in 2020. In 2019, Beck portrayed Karolka/ Jen ˚ufa and covered Dorabella/ Così fan tutte at The Santa Fe Opera as an Apprentice Artist. She is a former member of the Marion Roose Pullin Arizona Opera Studio, where she has been heard as Mary Johnson/ Fellow Travelers and Cherubino/ The Marriage of Figaro . Other Arizona Opera credits include Catherine Wright/ Shining Brow , Madeleine Audebert/ Silent Night , and Flora/ La traviata . While at Opera Colorado in 2018, the mezzo sang Lisette in Gerald Cohen’s Steal a Pencil for Me (world premiere). Beck has numerous recital and chamber-music credits, including two summers as a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center. Katherine Beck is sponsored by Maree G.Bullock,Frank B.Modruson & Lynne C.Shigley, and the Thierer Family Foundation. MARTIN LUTHER CLARK | TENOR Previously at Lyric: First Armored Man/ The Magic Flute and Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22). Second-year Ryan Opera Center tenor Martin Luther Clark recently completed his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, receiving a master’s degree in opera. His performances there included the roles of First Sailor/ Dido and Aeneas , Tobias Ragg/ Sweeney Todd , and Don Ottavio/ Don Giovanni . Also on the East Coast he sang in concert with Russian Opera Workshop both Vaudemont/ Iolanta and King Charles/ The Maid of Orleans during their 2019 summer season. A year earlier, he was heard as an Apprentice Artist at Central City Opera and as tenor soloist at the Library of Congress, where Artist profiles