Lyric Opera of Chicago launches its 67th season with Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion on Sunday, August 29, at 6:00 p.m. This free outdoor performance, presented in cooperation with The City of Chicago and Millennium Park, is part of Chicago in Tune, a citywide festival celebrating our city’s legendary music community.
Lyric’s outdoor concerts at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion have historically attracted large crowds to the seating bowl, great lawn, and surrounding areas of the park. Lyric will follow all up-to-date safety guidelines and protocols of Millennium Park and The City of Chicago to ensure that audiences are comfortable and safe.
Enrique Mazzola, Lyric's new music director, will be on the podium to conduct Lyric's first live performance in nearly 18 months. Appearing with the Lyric Opera Orchestra, the concert features the members of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center — sopranos Mathilda Edge, Maria Novella Malfatti, and Denis Vélez; mezzo-sopranos Katherine Beck, Katherine DeYoung, and Kathleen Felty; tenors Martin Luther Clark and Lunga Eric Hallam; baritone Leroy Davis; basses Rivers Hawkins and Anthony Reed; conductor/pianist Donald Lee III; and pianist Chris Reynolds.
Highlighting the program will be several excerpts from Lyric’s upcoming season: Verdi's Macbeth, Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas, Puccini's Tosca, and Blanchard/Lemmon's Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The concert will open with a crowd favorite — Rossini’s William Tell Overture, performed by the Lyric Opera Orchestra. Special ensemble selections from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Bernstein’s Candide will close out the evening.
Join the conversation by tagging @LyricOpera in your posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There will be chances to win tickets to the 2021/22 Season during the evening, and the first 2,000 guests to arrive will receive a free Lyric giveaway item.
Lyric Opera of Chicago opens its 67th Season on Friday, September 17, presented by Invesco QQQ, that will include six mainstage operas: Verdi’s Macbeth (Sept. 17 – Oct. 9), Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love (Sept. 26 – Oct. 8), Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Nov. 3 – 27), Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas (Nov. 13 – 28), Puccini's Tosca (Mar. 12 – Apr. 10), and Blanchard/Lemmon’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (Mar. 24 – Apr. 8), as well as the Mazzoli/Vavrek chamber opera Proving Up (performed at The Goodman Theatre, Jan. 22 – 30).
Lyric’s 2021/22 Season also includes a special concert celebrating Sir Andrew Davis’s magnificent two-decade tenure as Lyric’s music director with one of his favorite works, never previously performed at Lyric: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, featuring the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus on April 1. The concert will begin with a new choral work by Sir Andrew’s son, composer Ed Frazier Davis.
All of Lyric’s regular-season performances take place at the Lyric Opera House with projected English texts for every opera. Subscriptions are still available and single tickets go on sale on August 3. For information on specific performance dates and ticket availability, please call (312) 827-5600 or visit lyricopera.org.
Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars is generously made possible by Lead Sponsor BMO Financial Group.
Sunday in the Park with Lyric’s Rising Stars is also generously made possible by the Rhoda & Henry Frank Family Foundation, CNA, In Loving Memory of Beatrice G. Crain by the Crain-Maling Foundation, The Recording Industry's Music Performance Trust Fund, and the Film Funds Trust Funds. Presented in cooperation with The City of Chicago and Millennium Park.
Lyric Opera of Chicago thanks its Official Airline, American Airlines.
Lyric Opera of Chicago is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
2021|22 Season Sponsor
Invesco QQQ is offered by Invesco Distributors, Inc. This should not be construed as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security or investment product. Invesco is not affiliated with Lyric Opera of Chicago.
About Lyric
Lyric Opera of Chicago is committed to redefining what it means to experience great opera. The company is driven to deliver consistently excellent artistry through innovative, relevant, celebratory programming that engages and energizes new and traditional audiences.
Under the leadership of General Director, President & CEO Anthony Freud, Music Director Enrique Mazzola, and Special Projects Advisor Renée Fleming, Lyric is dedicated to reflecting, and drawing strength from, the diversity of Chicago. Lyric offers, through innovation, collaboration, and evolving learning opportunities, ever-more exciting, accessible, and thought-provoking audience and community experiences. We also stand committed to training the artists of the future, through The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center; and to becoming increasingly diverse across our audiences, staff, programming, and artists—magnifying the welcoming pull of our art form, our company, and our city.
Through the timeless power of voice, the splendor of a great orchestra and chorus, theater, dance, design, and truly magnificent stagecraft, Lyric is devoted to immersing audiences in worlds both familiar and unexpected, creating shared experiences that resonate long after the curtain comes down.
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For more information, visit lyricopera.org.