John Relyea To Sing Title Role In THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO 8/6-8

Bass-baritone John Relyea will sing the role of Figaro, and Ailyn Perez will play the Countess in Ravinia Festival's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 6, and 1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 8, in the Martin Theatre. Originally cast in the roles, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo has withdrawn due to illness, and Rebecca Evans suffered a death in the family.

Relyea is familiar to Ravinia audiences, having made his festival in 2001 with Christoph Eschenbach conducting Verdi's Requiem. He was featured in Mahler's Eighth Sympony under Eschenbach in 2004 and under James Conlon in 2008. He has appeared in many of the world's most celebrated opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, and the Maryinksy Theater. His credits include the title roles of The Marriage of Figaro, Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and Rachmaninoff's Aleko; Méphistophélès in both Gounod's Faust and Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, the Four Villains in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffman, Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and many more. He also remains in high demand throughout the concert world, where he appears regularly with such orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra,Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta
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Symphony Orchestra and others. This season Relyea made his debut at the Lyric Opera of

Chicago in La Damnation de Faust and returned to the Metropolitan Opera for The Marriage of Figaro. He is the winner of the 2009 Beverly Sills Award and the 2003 Richard Tucker award.

Ailyn Perez graduated from Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts and Indiana University. She has won major prizes in both opera and recital, including second prize in the 2006 Operalia Competition in Spain and the George London Award in the 2006 George London Foundation Competition, and received the Shoshana Foundation Career Award in 2007. Perez sang the role of Leila in Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles with the Teatro Municipal in Chile in 2009, followed by her debut at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata.

Figaro will be presented in repertory with Così fan tutte. Both operas feature all-star casts, including Frederica von Stade and Ana Maria Martinez in Così fan tutte, and Nathan Gunn in The Marriage of Figaro. James Conlon leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. For tickets and information, visit www.ravinia.org.

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