Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 6 - Hansel and Gretel

15 | Lyric Opera of Chicago & CEO Anthony Freud. “I’ve sat on many competition juries over the years, and some of them not only do not cover the travel and lodging expenses of the singers who enter, but even in certain cases singers have to pay to enter,” Freud notes. “And that, to me, is completely wrong. If competitors aren’t fully reimbursed, how can we talk about inclusivity? It’s incredibly important that a commitment to inclusivity includes affordability.” Inclusivity and access are key components of the audition process from the very start, says Ryan Opera Center Director Dan Novak. It begins with promotional efforts. Every January, in a wide variety of traditional ways, the Ryan Opera Center announces that singer applications may be submitted. Numerous websites and publications publicize the opportunity, but Lyric supplements its efforts with an eye toward the company’s broader efforts in Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA). “We want the process to be as absolutely open and accessible as possible,” Novak says. “Applying for the Ryan Opera Center is free of charge, and we send marketing materials to universities and schools where there are historically diverse student bodies. In the group of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, for instance, there are 23 music programs to which we send the audition announcement, encouraging their students to apply.” Ongoing improvements in technology have made video-recorded submissions far more useful than in the past—which, in turn, has expanded the pool of applicants to a global scale. In any given year, the Ryan Opera Center will review somewhere between 400 and 500 videos. “We listen to all applicants and determine who advances to a preliminary live audition,” Novak says. “That narrows the number down to somewhere between 150 to 200 singers, whom we hear in New York City and in Chicago over the course of the spring and summer.” As large-scale as all that might sound, it actually represents only one facet of how the Ryan Opera Center finds talent. Everyone in Lyric’s artistic leadership is listening and keeping an eye out for stars on the rise, wherever their work takes them—to universities, performances, and festivals all over the world. That’s the less formal part of the company’s outreach efforts, which Novak refers to simply as “recruitment.” “It’s a year-long and ongoing process,” Faulkner notes. “Over the past summer, I heard about 90 different singers—not just heard, but worked with for an hour. I was in Santa Fe, I was in San Francisco, I was in England.” It’s much the same for Craig Terry, the Ryan Opera Center’s Music Director. “I curated a big concert in Santa Barbara over the summer, with about 25 really gifted singers,” he says. “There was one very young Lyric’s Music Director Enrique Mazzola serves as a judge for the Final Auditions and works with Ensemble members throughout the year. Kyle Flubacker