Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 5 - Blue

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 8 From the Chair and the General Director Greetings, friends! Our music director Enrique Mazzola has often remarked that all operas were once new, and that truth is part of what makes it so exciting to present vital works from our own time. Blue is an emotional — and profoundly relevant — opera. Created, remarkably, before the widespread reckonings with police violence that took place during the pandemic, it delves deeply into universal themes that have resonated powerfully with audiences since its premiere at The Glimmerglass Festival in July 2019. It was named Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America in 2020, well-deserved recognition for its creators, Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson. We are extraordinarily lucky to welcome Tazewell as director of this production. We’re lucky, too, to bring this work to the Lyric stage with some of our favorite artists. In the role of Mother we are pleased to welcome back Chicago native Zoie Reams, most recently seen as Maddalena in the glorious Rigoletto that opened our season. Opposite her as the Father, Kenneth Kellogg makes his Lyric debut, and Norman Garrett returns to join us as the Reverend. It’s a pleasure to welcome you here for this gathering of old friends and new. We hope you enjoy the performance. JOHN MANGUM President, General Director & CEO, The Women’s Board Endowed Chair Kyle Flubacker The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, Lyric’s professional training program for emerging artists, is known around the world as one of the finest of its kind. This season the Ryan Opera Center is celebrating its 50th anniversary, an impressive run of helping launch international careers for countless singers. Begun as the Lyric Opera School of Chicago, the school was renamed in 2006 following an extraordinary gift from the Ryans that has allowed it to grow in size and scope. Lyric is forever grateful to the Ryans, exceptional leaders and transformative philanthropists, for their love of Lyric and the future of opera. Among the opportunities afforded to the Ryan Opera Center Ensemble (which in recent years has grown to include pianists, conductors, and stage managers) is the chance to perform in Lyric’s main stage productions. Onstage for Blue will be second-year tenor Travon D. Walker, in the compelling role of The Son. Second-year bass-baritone Christopher Humbert Jr. plays one of the Father’s policeman friends, a crucial part of the central family’s community. Adia Evans, a first-year soprano who made her Lyric debut in Rigoletto and who will sing in The Listeners later this season, is one of the Mother’s Girlfriends, a support system onstage at the very beginning of the opera. The excellent pianist Michael Banwarth, now in his second year, was part of the musical preparation staff. It’s exciting to share this work, and this experience, with all of you. Thank you for being part of the Lyric family. SYLVIA NEIL Chair of the Board Todd Rosenberg