Lyric Opera of Chicago Announces 2022/23 Season Featuring Two World Premieres

Lyric Opera of Chicago today announced the company's 2022/23 Season, featuring productions of classic operas, a continuing long-term focus on developing and presenting new work, plus the return of Lyric's annual spring musical.

The company's 68th season opens with Verdi's Ernani, conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola and directed by Louisa Muller, featuring the exhilarating vocal fireworks of four of America's finest singers, each with a rich performance history at Lyric: Tamara Wilson, Russell Thomas, Quinn Kelsey, and Christian Van Horn. The season continues with a new operatically scaled production of the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, conceived by iconoclastic opera director Barrie Kosky and conducted by Kimberly Grigsby in her Lyric debut. This heralded production from the Komische Oper Berlin, which has triumphed in a number of European cities, makes its long-planned United States debut at Lyric.

Next in the season is Verdi's epic drama Don Carlos, presented at Lyric for the first time in its original five-act French version, conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola in Sir David McVicar's production and featuring Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Clémentine Margaine, Joshua Guerrero, Igor Golovatenko in his Lyric debut, Dmitry Belosselskiy, and Soloman Howard. The 2022/23 Season continues with the Lyric premiere of Rossini's frothy Le Comte Ory, whose cast-including Lawrence Brownlee, Kathryn Lewek, and Joshua Hopkins-will thrill audiences with the opera's bravura vocal acrobatics, in a Bartlett Sher production from the Metropolitan Opera conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola.

Next, Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric's former music director, returns to conduct Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, in Lyric's iconic production originally directed by Richard Jones.

At the heart of Lyric's 2022/23 season announcement is the news of two world premieres, a signal of Lyric's ongoing commitment to creating and presenting new and recent operas as a regular part of its future seasons. Lyric has enjoyed tremendous success in recent years with presenting chamber operas, works such as The Property by Wlad Marhulets and Stephanie Fleischmann, Charlie Parker's Yardbird by Daniel Schnyder and Bridgette A. Wimberly, Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce, and An American Dream by Jack Perla and Jessica Murphy Moo. And later in the current 2021/22 Season, Lyric will present Terence Blanchard and Kasi Lemmons's Fire Shut Up in My Bones on its mainstage.

The first of two world premieres in the 2022/23 Season is the soul opera The Factotum, composed by the star singer Will Liverman and DJ/producer King Rico, who bring their unique blend of musical styles to a new comedy set in a Black barbershop on Chicago's South Side. Kedrick Armstrong and Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj make their Lyric debuts conducting and directing this world premiere production at Chicago's Harris Theater. The Factotum's first workshop in 2020 was chronicled in a documentary feature available for viewing on Lyric's website. Lyric will detail the creative development of both world premieres next season with behind-the-scenes features on Lyric's website and social media channels.

The second world premiere in the 2022/23 Season is Proximity, a trio of new American operas. This exciting and groundbreaking project features three new works with intertwining themes-intended to be experienced as a single, riveting whole-and features the Lyric debuts of some of the most important artists of our time: composer Daniel Bernard Roumain working with acclaimed playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith as librettist; Caroline Shaw, composer and co-librettist working with Jocelyn Clarke as co-librettist; and John Luther Adams, setting a text by the late poet John Haines. Director Yuval Sharon has been instrumental in working with the creative teams in the development of the project and he will direct this production. Proximity is conducted by Kazem Abdullah in his Lyric debut; Lyric Special Projects Advisor Renée Fleming is the project's curator. Proximity continues Lyric's commitment to expand the art form beyond its traditional roots and to bring new creative voices to Lyric and to Chicago.

Lyric will soon share more details on projects planned for several future seasons. Works to be presented include:

• Omar, co-composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels with a libretto by Giddens, based on the life and autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, an enslaved Muslim-African man. This Lyric coproduction will have its world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston this summer.

• Two works by the celebrated team of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek: the North American premiere of The Listeners, a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia and Norwegian National Opera, based on the Jordan Tannahill novel; and Proving Up, a supernatural story of Nebraska homesteaders in the 1870s, based on the short story by Karen Russell, in a production by James Darrah that was originally to be presented in Lyric's 2021/22 Season.

The 2022/23 Season also features the return of Bizet's Carmen, starring J'Nai Bridges, an alumna of Lyric's Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, as opera's most alluring femme fatale; her co-stars include Charles Castronovo with Golda Schultz and Andrei Kymach in their Lyric debuts. The production is conducted by Henrik Nánási and directed by Marie Lambert.

Heralding the return of its traditional spring musical, Lyric's hit production of the classic West Side Story concludes the company's 2022/23 Season. This Francesca Zambello production stands as one of the most successful shows in company history.

The season also includes a one-night-only concert event featuring beloved soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry in concert with the Lyric Opera Orchestra, conducted by Enrique Mazzola, the program of which includes the Chicago premiere of The Brightness of Light, composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts.

"Our next season at Lyric will showcase the breadth of opera at its most engaging, with a diverse mix of traditional productions of classic operas alongside new contemporary American works and grand-scale musical theater favorites in reimagined productions for the operatic stage," says Freud. "I am particularly excited by the two world premieres we have commissioned as part of our new commitment to developing and presenting new and recent works each season, and for Chicago audiences to experience the works of these relevant and diverse stories told by diverse storytellers. I am proud that Lyric is at the forefront of expanding the boundaries of the opera house and bringing new authorial voices to the stage and into our community."

"In my second full season as music director, I am honored to be conducting three classic works: Ernani, a key title in our Early Verdi Series, and Don Carlos and Le Comte Ory, two sensational operas that I have the pleasure of introducing to Lyric audiences," says Mazzola. "I also look forward to welcoming my predecessor Sir Andrew Davis back to the podium to lead our performances of Hansel and Gretel, and to experiencing the sonic and dramatic worlds of our two world premiere operas. This exciting season presents thrilling music theater in all its forms-past, present, and future!"

For more information on Lyric's 2022/23 Season, visit lyricopera.org/newseason