Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Rising Stars

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 8 in Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute Program for Singers and, more recently, the Solti Accademia di Bel Canto fellowship program in Italy. Felty made her North Carolina Opera concert debut as Clotilde/ Norma and her Dayton Opera debut in the role of Maddalena/ Rigoletto . At Lyric, she will be a soloist in the upcoming Beethoven 9 with Sir Andrew Davis. In Chicago she recently performed for the Harris Theater’s Beyond the Aria series. The mezzo is a five-time District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition and a winner of the Heafner Williams Vocal Competition (2019). Kathleen Felty is sponored by Heidi Heutel Bohn, Lawrence O.Corry, and Mrs.J.W.Van Gorkom. LUNGA ERIC HALLAM | TENOR Previously at Lyric: Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22). Second-year Ryan Opera Center tenor Lunga Eric Hallam is from Khayelitsha, South Africa. There, he founded a nonprofit organization called Phenomenal Opera Voices. He received his diploma and postgraduate (with honors) degrees in music training from the University of Cape Town College of Music. Recent engagements as a Young Artist at Cape Town Opera include Tebaldo/ I Capuleti e i Montecchi , Edgardo/ Lucia di Lammermoor , and Roberto/ Maria Stuard a, as well as Ramiro/ La Cenerentola at Cape Town Conservatory. He was featured as part of the 2017 Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. Hallam competed as a semifinalist in the 2019 Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition and the 2019 Voice of South Africa International Singing Competition. Chicago appearances include the Harris Theater’s Beyond the Aria series alongside Joyce DiDonato. For Lyric, he will appear as Adult Nathan/ Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021/22) . Lunga Eric Hallam is sponsored by The Ford,Mages,and Boykins Families; RichardW. Shepro & Lindsay E.Roberts; and Ms.Gay K.Stanek . RIVERS HAWKINS | BASS Previously at Lyric: Doctor/ Macbeth and Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22). First-year Ryan Opera Center bass Rivers Hawkins is a native of Columbia, South Carolina. He is an alumnus of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music (Master of Music and Performer Diploma), where he performed the title role/ Giulio Cesare , Leporello/ Don Giovanni , and the Captain/ Florencia en el Amazonas . He was a finalist in The Kurt Weill Foundation’s 2020 Lotte Lenya Competition, where he won a Trustees Award and was featured in the Foundation’s documentary Down to Twelve . That year he was also scheduled to join the Apprentice Singer Program with the Santa Fe Opera. Hawkins is a recipient of The Georgina Joshi Foundation’s International Fellowship, and in 2018 held a Resident Young Artist position with Hawaii Opera Theatre, performing as Zaretsky and the Captain/ Eugene Onegin , the Corporal/ La fille du régiment , and Beau/ Service Provider . The bass is also a former member of Central City Opera’s Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program. Upcoming at Lyric, he will appear as Angelotti/ Tosca . Rivers Hawkins is sponsored by the H.Earl and Miriam U.Hoover Endowment Fund. DONALD LEE III | CONDUCTOR/PIANIST Previously at Lyric: Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22). Originally from Hampton, Virginia, Donald Lee III is the inaugural Ryan Opera Center conductor/ pianist, a new Ensemble position in 2021/22. Committed to uplifting marginalized voices, Lee recently programmed and performed digital recitals titled “Where Honor is Due” with Salon 21 in Cincinnati and “Adaptations” with Piano by Nature in Elizabethtown, New York, highlighting the music of Black composers alongside canonical works. He also recorded for the Indictus Project a previously unrecorded set of cotillions by the Black composer Francis Johnson. Lee performed Liszt’s Totentanz with the Eastern Music Festival’s Young Artist Orchestra. Competition successes include top prizes in Virginia’s MTNA competition, the Harold Protsman Classical Period Competition, the Eastern Music Festival Concerto Competition, and the VMTA Piano Concerto Competition. Lee was a Presser Scholar, receiving his bachelor’s degree in piano performance from James Madison University. As a Yates Fellow he earned his master’s degree in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music (CCM), and then served as assistant professor of piano at Kentucky State University. Donald Lee III is sponsored by Lead Sponsors Michael & Salme Harju Steinberg , and Cosponsors Dr.David H.Whitney & Dr.Juliana Y.Chyu, and Drs.Joan & Russ Zajtchuk . MARIA NOVELLA MALFATTI | SOPRANO Previously at Lyric: Second Apparition/ Macbeth, Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars (2021/22); Twilight: Gods (2020/21). Italian soprano Maria Novella Malfatti is a second-year Ryan Opera Center member. Malfatti debuted in 2020 at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw as Azema/ Semiramide , conducted by Michele Mariotti, and at Dutch National Opera she sang Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny . Previously she performed in Mahagonny for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence with Esa-Pekka Salonen. Her frequent appearances at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in Austria include Musetta/ La bohème , Tamiri/ Il re pastore , Cleone/ Ermione , the Shepherd/ Tannhäuser , and as soprano soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio . Malfatti was a finalist in the 52nd International Vocal Competition of 's-Hertogenbosch, and, in 2016, she was awarded third prize at the Ferruccio Tagliavini International Competition for Opera Singers in Deutschlandsberg, Austria. The soprano graduated cum laude in Master Classical Voice at the Conservatorium in Amsterdam, following her studies in violin at the