Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 5 - Blue

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 70 Dreams of Tomorrow “I killed a man and the world forgave me, yet I loved a man and the world wanted to kill me.” It’s a key line in Terence Blanchard’s Champion , but it’s not Emile Griffith who speaks it — this time. A student leaving a dress rehearsal shouts the powerful words just outside the Lyric Opera House doors in what Elise LaBarge, Lyric Unlimited’s Learning Programs Manager, remembers as one of her favorite moments of Lyric’s Free Student Dress Rehearsals program. The initiative provides free tickets for Lyric dress rehearsals to students grades 6-12 at Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Big Shoulders Schools, sharing the magic of opera with students who otherwise might not have ever experienced its splendor. This 2024/25 Season, Lyric Unlimited, the company’s Learning and Civic Engagement division, is bringing back these stop-in-your-tracks moments. Of a piece with Lyric’s commitment to engaging with diverse audiences, the program indeed reaches new young people each year, and introduces them to the art form — but it achieves much more than that. Organizers at Lyric make sure that the program aligns with curricular goals. Opera advances storytelling and story comprehension for students, as well as sparks student creativity and makes them aware of a range of possibilities — both in expression and profession — they may not have even known existed. The front of the house is always bustling on student dress rehearsal days. By Leo Swearingen Robert Kusel Lyric Unlimited’s Free Student Dress Rehearsals program shares opera with hundreds of young people recite rt l