Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 4 - Figaro

29 | Lyric Opera of Chicago PETER KELLNER FIGARO Lyric debut In the 2022/23 Season the bass-baritone returned to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Papageno, and made his Met debut as Colline. He joined the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera in 2018/19, and recently sang Masetto in the new production of Don Giovanni , Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, and Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia . Other recent highlights for the Slovakia native include Colline in London, Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Il re di Scozia in Ariodante, Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera, and Brander in La Damnation de Faust at the Salzburg Festival. In recent years, Kellner has made several house debuts, including at the Vienna State Opera as Panthée in Berlioz’s Les Troyens , at London’s Royal Opera House as Ratcliffe ( Billy Budd ), as well as at the Glyndebourne Festival and the Volksoper Wien as Figaro ( Le nozze di Figaro ). He also debuted as Papageno ( Die Zauberflöte ) at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Sevilla and at the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. Further debuts include Sarastro ( Die Zauberflöte ) at Stadttheater Klagenfurt, the title role in Handel’s Hercules at Staatstheater Oldenburg, Le Gouverneur ( Le Comte Ory ) at the Klosterneuburg Festival, Dulcamara ( L’elisir d’amore ) at the Staatstheater Banská Bystrica, and Sciarrone and Carceriere ( Tosca ) with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. He sang his first Colline ( La Bohème ) and Leporello ( Don Giovanni ) at the Slovak National Theater in Bratislava. YING FANG SUSANNA Previously at Lyric: Pamina /The Magic Flute (2021/22), Zerlina/ Don Giovanni (2019/20). The Chinese soprano begins the 2024/25 Season with her house debut at Covent Garden as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro in a production by Sir David McVicar. She debuts also at the Bayerische Staatsoper as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and makes her role debut as Marzelline in Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera opposite Lise Davidsen, conducted by Susanna Mälkki and broadcast as part of The Met Live in HD series. She also sings Ilia in Idomeneo in her house debut at San Francisco Opera. On the concert stage, she joins the Sydney Symphony and Sir Donald Runnicles for Mahler’s 4th symphony and Lieder of Richard Strauss, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons as Mater Gloriosa in Mahler’s 8th symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal and Yannick Nézet-Séguin for her first Beethoven 9th, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Raphaël Pichon at Carnegie Hall for a program of Schubert, Schumann, and Weber. Last season, Fang returned to Opéra National de Paris as Zerlina in Don Giovanni , Dutch National Opera as Poppea in Agrippina and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte , the Metropolitan Opera in her role debut as Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice, and Santa Fe Opera in her role debut as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. Previous highlights include a house debut at the Wiener Staatsoper as Susanna in a new Barrie Kosky production of Le nozze de Figaro , a role she reprised with the Handel and Haydn Society, and returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Ilia in Idomeneo and as Zerlina in a new production of Don Giovanni. FEDERICA LOMBARDI COUNTESS ALMAVIVA Lyric debut The Italian soprano appears this season at Vienna State Opera as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito , Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, and in the lead roles for Norma and Luisa Miller . Other engagements include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, Mimì in La Bohème and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in New York, Elettra in Idomeneo in Geneva, and Anna Bolena and Don Carlo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She made her debut with the Dutch National Opera in a staged production of Verdi’s Requiem, sang Le nozze di Figaro with Vienna State Opera in Monte Carlo, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera. Other recent highlights include her debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Antonio Pappano, a role she sang also at the Met, along with Elettra in Idomeneo in the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production. She made her successful role debut as Amelia Grimaldi in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège and as Mimì in La Bohème in Valencia. Lombardi appears as Mimì in a 2022 film version of La Bohème produced in 2022 by the RAI Cultura channel in cooperation with the Teatro del Opera in Rome. Her recording of Desdemona in Otello for Sony, conducted by Antonio Pappano, was released in 2020. GORTDON BINTNER COUNT ALMAVIVA Lyric debut This season, the bass-baritone will take the title role in a new production at Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden of Eugene Onegin, and makes a role debut at Opéra National de Paris as Golaud in a new staging of Pelléas et Mélisande. Bintner spent six seasons as a member of Oper Frankfurt’s ensemble, with roles including Argante ( Rinaldo) , Chorèbe ( Les Troyens ), Graf ( Capriccio ), Harlekin ( Ariadne auf Naxos ), Count (Schreker’s Der ferne Klang ), Vladislav (Smetana’s Dalibor ), Escamillo ( Carmen ), and Don Polidoro (Cimarosa’s L’italiana in Londra). He has recently made debuts at Opéra national de Paris as Junior in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place, Artist profiles