Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 7 - Aida

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 14 opera, completed in 1869—and now considered the authoritative edition—premiered at La Scala with Teresa Stolz as the tragic heroine, Leonora; two years later, she would take the title role in the Italian premiere of Aida . Lyric has produced the work three times, first under the baton of Sir George Solti in 1956 (the inaugural year of company founder Carol Fox’s tenure as sole General Director). Playing Don Alvaro, half of the doomed central couple, was renowned tenor Richard Tucker. His love interest was the legendary Renata Tebaldi, with Ettore Bastianini, Giulietta Simionato, and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni in the other leading roles. To play Curra, Leonora’s maid, Lyric cast a young mezzo-soprano named Ardis Krainik. Tenor Carlo Bergonzi, who had made his U.S. debut at Lyric in 1955, played Don Alvaro in the company’s 1961 production, in a cast that also included Eileen Farrell, Boris Christoff, and Christa Ludwig. The work wasn’t staged again until the 1987/88 season, when it was presented under the baton of James Conlon, with Susan Dunn, Giuseppe Giacomini, and Leo Nucci in the cast. The 1987/88 production of La forza was the first that Atkinson and his wife, Mary Jo, saw performed live. But it’s nearly certain that Atkinson first heard La forza ’s stirring music—and, really, a great deal of the standard repertoire—on his parents’ phonograph, as he drifted off in his bedroom in the family’s Astor Street home (in that era of gas rationing, they had moved to be closer to the hospital). Atkinson’s parents were opera fans at a time when the city had no established company—but as fortune would have it, they shared a mutual acquaintance with Carol Fox. “When they heard that Ms. Fox was going to restart opera in Chicago, they just thought that was wonderful and they wanted to be part of it,” Atkinson remembers. And indeed they were; their front row seats are still in the family. Over the decades, attending the company’s performances and events was a major component of the family’s life—and after Art’s father passed away, Lyric provided his mother’s main social engagements. Art and Mary Jo met through sailing connections in the early 80s, and they married in 1984. Opera became part of her life, too. “The first opera I ever attended was with Art,” she says. “And I didn’t think I was going to like it, but I did. It’s hard to be with the Atkinsons and not like opera. They made it come to life, and that was beautiful. That was what we did for fun.” They fell in love with La forza itself during that 1987/88 production. “I think the second scene of act two, in the monastery, with the beautiful monk’s chorus, and then the abbot coming in, and then the soprano coming in over the top – I think these are the best 40 minutes in opera. I mean, just gorgeous. We are happy to play a part in sharing it with others. ” Arthur Atkinson’s mother,Inez (foreground),seen crewing for him in a Belmont Harbor race in the late 1970s,was one of Lyric’s first subscribers.