Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 6 - Champion

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 36 GREG EMETAZ VIDEO DESIGNER Previously at Lyric: Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021/22), and Bel Canto (2015/16). Emetaz is a filmmaker and projection designer. In addition to Bel Canto at Lyric, his projection design work includes many other important opera world premieres, including Dolores Claiborne at San Francisco Opera, Enemies: a Love Story at Palm Beach Opera, and Shalimar the Clown , “ 27 ”, Champion , and The Golden Ticket at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Emetaz is the director of the feature film Camp Wedding ; short films including Spell Claire , Bowes Academy (NC Gay + Lesbian Film Fest Jury award), Get the F K Outta Paris!, and Death by Omelette (SNCF Prix du Polar Finalist and Hong Kong Mobile Film Awards Silver Medalist); and music videos incuding Eating 4 Two and Butt Drunk (Friars Club Comedy Film Festival special Jury Award, iTVfest Best Director Award, co-directed with Amanda DeSimone). Emetaz has also created the behind-scenes documentaries for Julie Taymor’s The Tempest , Broadway musical Spider-Man Turn off the Dark , and numerous productions at New York City Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. MICHAEL BLACK CHORUS DIRECTOR The Australian Chorus Director is in his 11th season at Lyric, having held this position at Opera Australia in Sydney from 2001 to 2013. Black has served in this capacity for such distinguished organizations as the Edinburgh International Festival, Opera Holland Park (London), the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and, in Australia, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Choir, Motet Choir, the Cantillation chamber choir, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Other activities include preparing The Damnation of Faust chorus and Haydn’s Creation at the Grant Park Music Festival, where he has worked for five seasons. He has served as chorus director for close to 140 different operas on four continents, and his work has been recorded and/or aired on ABC, BBC, PBS, for many HD productions in movie theaters, and on television. Michael Black is supported by the Howard A. Stotler Chorus Director Endowed Chair. CAMILLE A. BROWN CHOREOGRAPHER Previously at Lyric: Co-director & Choreographer/ Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021/22). The choreographer, Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, is reclaiming the cultural narratives of African American identity by tapping into both ancestral stories and contemporary culture, capturing a range of deeply personal experiences. Among her numerous honors are a Guggenheim Award, a Bessie Award, a Dance Magazine award, and Tony, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel Award nominations. Brown’s trilogy on race, culture, and identity has won accolades across the country. Broadway, Off- Broadway, and television credits include Choir Boy, Once On This Island, Jesus Christ Superstar Live on NBC, Broadway’s A Streetcar Named Desire , and Much Ado About Nothing , among many other productions. Brown, who choreographed the Metropolitan Opera’s Porgy and Bess , made her feature-film debut in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix). She made her directorial debuts with the Broadway revival of for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf , Fire Shut Up in My Bones for the Met (co- directed with James Robinson), and Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Westport Country Playhouse. CHRISTOPHER FIGARO JACKSON ASSOCIATE CHOREOGRAPHER Lyric debut The educator, dancer, and choreographer began his training at The Stairway of the Stars Dance Studio and is a graduate of The Chicago Academy of the Arts. His numerous dance credits include Disney’s The Lion King national tour, The Wiz (40th Anniversary Concert), Dreamgirls the Musical , Dorothy Dandridge The Musical , Let There Be Light , On The Town, Porgy & Bess, Fire Shut Up in My Bones , and Champion (Metropolitan Opera), X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X (Detroit Opera, Omaha Opera, Metropolitan Opera, and Seattle Opera), and Kinky Boots . He has performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ailey II, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Elisa Monte, River North Dance Chicago, and Victory Dance Project, among others. He has choreographed for Roundabout Theater (NYC), American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco), and elsewhere. AUGUST TYE BALLET MISTRESS The American dancer, choreographer, and ballet mistress has worked on nearly 50 productions at Lyric since 1993/94. She remounted the choreography of Lyric’s Iphigénie en Tauride at San Francisco Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She has presented a 20-year retrospective of her work at Chicago’s Vittum Theater and Ruth Page Dance Center, as well as in her hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. A graduate of Western Michigan University, Tye performed with the Kalamazoo Ballet, dancing leading roles in Sleeping Beauty , Cinderella , and The Nutcracker . In addition to Lyric and Joel Hall Dancers, she has performed in Chicago with Salt Creek Ballet, Second City Ballet, and Chicago Folks Operetta. Tye is Artistic Director at the Hyde Park School of Dance, which she founded in 1993. Four years later she founded Tyego Dance Project, which has performed at Steppenwolf, the Athenaeum, and throughout America in a revival of Spike Jones’s Nutcracker .