Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 7 - La bohème

31 | Lyric Opera of Chicago Georgia, Walker completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music. While there, he made his operatic debut in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead . Walker has been a Studio Artist at Wolf Trap Opera and was invited to participate in Renée Fleming’s 2023 SongStudio and Joyce DiDonato’s 2024 Masterclass Series, both at Carnegie Hall, as well as the 2023 Britten Pears Young Artist Programme. Other engagements include the Erie Philharmonic and Houston Grand Opera (Jeremy Howard Beck’s Another City , world premiere). Walker received an Encouragement Award from the Kansas City District in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, the 2024 Best Vocal Artist Award from the American Opera Society, and the 2024 Luminarts Cultural Foundation Men’s Voice Fellowship. Travon D. Walker is sponsored by the Robert & Isabelle Bass Foundation,Inc., an Anonymous Donor, and the Boykins,Ford,and Mages families. UNITING VOICES CHICAGO Previously at Lyric: 16 productions since 2000/01, most recently Carmen and Proximity (both 2022/23). Uniting Voices Chicago (Josephine Lee, president and artistic director), formerly Chicago Children’s Choir, is the nation’s preeminent youth choral organization, serving 5,200 students across the city of Chicago. Founded in Hyde Park in direct response to the Civil Rights Movement in 1956, Uniting Voices has grown from one choir into a vast network of in-school and after-school programs driven by one mission: to inspire and change lives through music. Uniting Voices has impacted the lives of more than 100,000 diverse youth throughout its 68- year history. Since its founding, Uniting Voices has focused on building programs that reflect the racial and economic diversity of Chicago. Eighty percent of youth served are from low-moderate income homes, with 100 percent of nearly 4,000 students annually participating at a subsidized cost. High school seniors enrolled in Uniting Voices have a 100% graduation rate, becoming global ambassadors who carry on Uniting Voices’s core values in a wide array of professional fields. JORDAN DE SOUZA CONDUCTOR Previously at Lyric: Florencia en el Amazonas (2021/22). The Canadian conductor has been appointed General Music Director of Theater Dortmund and Chief Conductor of Dortmund Philharmoniker with a five-year contract commencing in August 2025. This season he leads a new production of Don Carlo at the Royal Danish Opera and returns to Deutsche Oper Berlin for Turandot , Komische Oper Berlin for La Bohème , and Deutsche Oper am Rhein for Carmen . Other recent highlights include performances of La Bohème at the Canadian Opera Company and La traviata with Opéra de Montréal, debuts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and the world premiere of The Righteous , a new opera by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith at the Santa Fe Opera. He has helmed multiple programs on the podium of Orchestre symphonique de Montréal as well as concerts with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In the United States, he has appeared at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival and has conducted new productions of Tristan und Isolde for Seattle Opera and Rigoletto at Houston Grand Opera. European opera appearances include Die Zauberflöte at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Carmen at Dutch National Opera, and Der Rosenkavalier at Garsington Opera conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. He recently led La périchole at Theater an der Wien, a new production of La Bohème at Glyndebourne Festival, and made his Italian debut conducting the Orchestra della Toscana in a program of Brahms and Mendelssohn. MELANIE BACALING DIRECTOR Lyric Directorial debut At Lyric, Bacaling previously served as associate director on Fidelio (2024/25), and assistant director on Fire Shut Up in My Bones (2021/22) and The Factotum (2022/23). Bacaling is currently on the stage directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera, where she most recently assisted on David McVicar’s production of Il trovatore and Michael Mayer’s production of Aida . She is also the House Assistant Director at the Santa Fe Opera where she has worked for five summers. Upcoming engagements include serving as associate director for Matthew Ozawa’s production of Madama Butterfly at Pittsburgh Opera. Bacaling holds production credits with LA Opera, Detroit Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera Omaha, Washington Concert Opera, Aspen Opera Center, and the Sun Valley Music Festival. As a producer, Bacaling worked with Boston Lyric Opera to create WE NEED TO LISTEN , a series of conversations interrogating the racial inequities in classical music and opera. She holds a BM in Vocal Performance and BS in Psychology from the University of Evansville, as well as a Master of Music in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from the Boston Conservatory. GERARD HOWLAND SET DESIGNER Lyric debut The award-winning British artist is the founder of The ASC, The American Shakespeare Company, an entity dedicated to performances of contemporary works inspired by Shakespeare performed in an American traveling “Globe” theater. He was the director of design for San Francisco Opera for seven years and has been a concept designer for Walt Disney Imagineering for over 20 years. He has worked on more than 200 stage productions, 50 operas, and numerous television, film, and entertainment projects, with Fox Studios, Universal Studios, San Francisco Giants, the Rolling Stones, and many others. He has received four Drama Logue Awards and the IAAPA award for the creation of the Fox Studio attraction Titanic .