Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 7 - Carmen

27 | Lyric Opera of Chicago Artist pro les J’NAI BRIDGES | CARMEN Previously at Lyric: 10 roles since 2012/13, most recently Carmen/ Bel Canto (2015/16) and Inez/ Il trovatore (2014/15). The Grammy Award-winning American mezzo-soprano is an alumna of the Ryan Opera Center. This season she has sung Carmen, one of her signature roles, in debut engagements at the Arena di Verona and the Canadian Opera Company and in a return to Dutch National Opera. She recently made her Seattle Opera debut in a concert performance of Samson et Delilah as Delilah. Additional concerts include Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony with the Detroit Symphony, and a world premiere by Carlos Simon this spring with the National Symphony Orchestra. Recital engagements this season include a world premiere by Jimmy López Bellido at 92NY, and continue at Washington University, Thomasville Center for the Arts, The Cliburn, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Performances, and the Mondavi Center. Last season included numerous world premiere engagements as a guest artist in The Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Season, in addition to performances with the National Philharmonic Orchestra in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck and in Mozart’s Requiem . She also had her rst performance of the Verdi Requiem with the Cathedral Choral Society. Bridges appeared with the Amarillo Symphony in a world premiere by Chris Rogerson entitled Sacred Earth , and gave a solo recital at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton. Last summer, she performed Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel as part of the Power to the People! festival, followed by her debut with the San Francisco Symphony singing Jocasta in Peter Sellars’s production of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex , conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. CHARLES CASTRONOVO | DON JOSÉ Previously at Lyric: Three roles since 2011/12, most recently Nemorino/ The Elixir of Love (2021/22) and Lensky/ Eugene Onegin (2016/17). The tenor has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Opéra National de Paris, London’s Royal Opera House, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wienerstaats Oper, Teatro Real Madrid, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Gran Teatre del Liceu, and San Francisco Opera. Recent engagements include Werther in Zürich; Carlo/ I Masnadieri and Admète/ Alceste in Munich; Alfredo/ La traviata in London, Munich, and Vienna; Rodolfo/ La bohème in London; Gabriele Adorno/ Simon Boccanegra in Salzburg; and Ruggero/ La rondine in Berlin. Castronovo made his role and house debut as Rodolfo/ Luisa Miller at Glyndebourne and returned to Salzburg in the title role/ La damnation de Faust . Born in New York and raised in California, the tenor began his career as a resident artist at the LA Opera. He was then invited to join the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and in the autumn of 1999 he made his house debut there as Beppe in the opening-night performance of Pagliacci , opposite Plácido Domingo. He debuted at Lyric as Tamino/ The Magic Flute (2011/12). GOLDA SCHULTZ | MICAËLA Lyric debut The South African soprano recently made her role and house debuts at Opéra National de Paris as Micaëla. Elsewhere this season she has appeared as Adina/ Elixir of Love at the Metropolitan Opera where last season she sang Anne Truelove in The Rake’s Progress . Other recent highlights include a role debut as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz at Bayerische Staatsoper, Clara in Jake Heggie’s It’s A Wonderful Life at San Francisco Opera, Sophie/ Der Rosenkavalier and Vitellia/ La clemenza di Tito at Salzburger Festspiele, Susanna/ Le nozze di Figaro at Teatro alla Scala, Pamina/ Die Zauber öte , Nanetta/ Falstaff , and Clara/ Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, and Contessa Almaviva at Wiener Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich, and Glyndebourne Festival Opera. She returns to the 2023 Glyndebourne Festival as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites . In concert, Schultz opened the season with the San Francisco Symphony in Mahler and Sibelius’s Luonnotar and with the Tonkünstler Orchester Zürich in Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten , and she joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra in further performances of Luonnotar at both Boston Symphony Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall. In 2022, Schultz released her debut solo album on Alpha Classics: This Be Her Verse explores the world and inspirations of female composers from the Romantic era to the present day. ANDREI KYMACH | ESCAMILLO Lyric debut This season Kymach has sung Germont/ La traviata at Houston Grand Opera and the title role in Don Giovanni at Opera Australia. Last season the Ukrainian baritone sang the title role in Sadko at the Bolshoi Theatre, appeared at the Bayerische Staatsoper in La bohème , sang the title role in Don Giovanni at Welsh National Opera, and debuted at the Savonlinna Festival as Escamillo/ Carmen . Other recent highlights include house and role debuts at the Gran Teatro del Liceu (Barcelona) as Sir Riccardo Forth/ I puritani and at the Auditorio de Tenerife as Lord Enrico Ashton/