Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 6 - Champion
Lyric Opera of Chicago | 34 Africa at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Voices of Congo Square in his hometown of New Orleans. He has performed with Phoenix Danse, De La Soul Dance Company, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Long Island Ballet Theater, Sekou Miller Dance Company, Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, The Workshop Theater, and Balance Dance Theatre, and was a founding member of Urban Souls Dance Theater in Houston. MARTELL RUFFIN DANCER Lyric debut Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Ruffin began his formal dance training at Joffrey Ballet under the direction of Pierre Lockett. He attended Chicago High School for the Arts (Chiarts) and continued his dance training on scholarship at The Ailey School. He has completed summer programs with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Alvin Ailey, and has performed works by Alvin Ailey, Kyle Abraham, Robert Battle, George Faison, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Jae Man Joo, and others etc. Martell has danced with Ailey II and A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, and has choreographed for The Ailey School, Princeton University, Peridance, Orsolina 28 arts foundation, and Triptych ( Eyes of One Another ), in a work based on Robert Mapplethorpe. DYMON SAMARA DANCER Lyric debut Samara, a graduate of the New World School of the Arts, has performed works by choreographers Ohad Naharin, Camille A. Brown, and Stephen Petronio, and apprenticed with Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence A Dance Company in 2021. Samara is a Dean Scholar graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a former dance artist with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. BABOU SANNEH DANCER Lyric debut The Gambian-American artist is currently a dancer at the Metropolitan Opera and a model/commercial dancer based in New York. Sanneh has performed works by Martha Graham, Bill T. Jones, Johannes Weiland, Victor Quijada, Linda Celeste Sims, Glenn Allen Sims, and others. Sanneh has appeared in HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness , in the world premiere of Doppleganger at the Park Avenue Armory, and in campaigns for Telfar and Burberry. Sanneh is a recent graduate from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. BRIAN SELCIK DANCER Lyric debut Selcik’s recent credits include Cinderella , Grease , and Elf (Drury Lane); Bitelle in La Cage aux Folles and Billy Elliot (Music Theatre Works); The Wedding Singer and State Fair (Clinton Area Showboat Theatre); The Tempest (Oak Park Festival Theatre); and Andy Lee in 42nd Street (Chicago College of Performing Arts). Selcik recently received his BFA in Musical Theatre with a Dance Concentration from the Chicago College of Performing Arts. WHITNEY WANDLAND DANCER Previously at Lyric: The Factotum (2022/23). The multi-disciplinary performer’s training began with the Deeply Rooted Dance Company and later continued at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Recent credits include Empire (Fox), Soundtrack (Netflix), Usher , and Power Book IV: FORCE (Starz). 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 Verdi repertoire, and as a specialist in French repertoire. 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 2019/20, 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 as well as Verdi Voices and Rising Stars in Concert . Mazzola is Principal Guest Conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and, since 2022, the first ever Conductor-in-Residence at the Bregenz Festival. He served as Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestre National d’Île de France from 2012 to 2019. Symphonic guest work has included the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de France, and Oslo Philharmonic. He has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the major houses of Florence, 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, Poliuto, and Don Pasquale ), new productions in 2019 for Bregenz ( Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly ) 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 in Milan. Enrique Mazzola is supported by the John D.and Alexandra C.Nichols Endowed Chair. Joh D.and Alexandra C.Nichols En owed Chair.
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