Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 7 - Aida

35 | Lyric Opera of Chicago Seattle Opera, and Los Angeles Opera; West Side Story at Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival; and Porgy & Bess at Cincinnati Opera and Fort Worth Opera. Additionally, he works in architectural lighting design at Schuler Shook. 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. JESSICA LANG CHOREOGRAPHER Lyric debut Since 1999, the American director and choreographer has created more than 100 original works on companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and her eponymous company Jessica Lang Dance. Lang is Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet. She directed and choreographed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the Glimmerglass Festival that was presented at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in 2017, and was Artistic Director of Jessica Lang Dance from 2011- 2019. The company was presented by major venues around the world including Lincoln Center, Los Angeles Music Center, The Kennedy Center, The Harris Theater, NY City Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and BAM Fisher. She is the recipient of the Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, the Arison Award, and a Bessie Award. She was a fellow of New York City Center, The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, and in 2019, named a Caroline Hearst Choreographer- in-Residence at Princeton University. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Lang is a former member of Twyla Tharp’s company, THARP! Jessica Lang’s work at Lyric is funded by Elizabeth B.Yntema and Mark Ferguson in support of female creative leadership in the performing arts. CLAUDIA McDONALD ASSOCIATE CHOREOGRAPHER Lyric debut McDonald was a founding member of Jessica Lang Dance, both as dancer and rehearsal director. She has assisted Lang at the Glimmerglass Festival and the National Ballet of Japan, and restaged her work at Seattle Opera, LA Opera, Point Park University, and Marymount Manhattan College, among other venues. McDonald has performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group in The Hard Nut , Romeo & Juliet: On Motifs of Shakespeare , and L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato , as well as in Mr. Morris’ production of Orfeo ed Euridice at the Metropolitan Opera. McDonald holds a B.F.A. in Dance from Fordham University/The Ailey School. 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 Iphigènie 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 . SARAH HATTEN WIGMASTER & MAKEUP DESIGNER Lyric’s wigmaster and makeup designer has worked in a wide repertoire at Des Moines Metro Opera, Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre), Columbus Opera, Toledo Opera, the Cabrillo Music Festival, and the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music. She has also worked at the Glimmerglass Festival and the major opera companies of Los Angeles, Omaha, Cleveland, Sarasota, and Central City, as well as Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre and, in Los Angeles, the Pantages Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse. Sarah Hatten is supported by the Marlys A.Beider Wigmaster and Makeup Designer Endowed Chair. KATRINA BACHUS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Bachus has worked at Lyric Opera of Chicago since the 2016/17 Season, serving in various roles for productions such as Dead Man Walking (2019/20), Luisa Miller (2019/20), and Siegfried (2018/19), as well as numerous others. Since 2013, she has worked as both Associate and Assistant Director for many opera companies around the country including The Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and Los Angeles Opera. Favorite projects include Houston Grand Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s productions of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle (directed by Carlus Padrissa and Sir David Pountney, respectively) and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2021 production of Florencia en el Amazonas (directed by Francesca Zambello).