Enrique Mazzola extends contract as music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago via 2030-31
CHICAGO — Enrique Mazzola prolonged his contract as music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago via 2030-31, the corporate stated Tuesday because it introduced a 2024-25 season that opens with him conducting Verdi’s “Rigoletto” on Sept. 24.
A pair of latest works spotlight the season, Jeanine Tesori’s “Blue” beginning Nov. 16 and Missy Mazzoli’s “The Listeners” starting March 30, 2025. The six productions match the quantity in 2023-24.
Mazzola, 55, succeeded Andrew Davis with a five-year contract in 2021-22. He additionally will conduct Beethoven’s “Fidelio” beginning Sept. 26 and “The Listeners.”
The corporate has not but introduced a successor to common director Anthony Freud, who stated final fall he’ll retire on the finish of 2023-24, his thirteenth season.
“Blue” premiered at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York, on July 14, 2019. Kenneth Kellogg returns from the primary solid in an opera a couple of Black police officer whose son is killed by a white police officer. Tazewell Thompson, who wrote the libretto, directs the manufacturing on the Lyric Opera Home — it was first deliberate for Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier in 2020 however was postponed due to the pandemic.
“The Listeners” opened on the Norwegian Opera on Sept. 24, 2022, and is scheduled for its U.S. premiere at Opera Philadelphia this Sept. 25. Nicole Heaston reprises her function as Claire in an opera about charismatic leaders, cult-like rituals and an environmental hum only some individuals can hear.
Mary Birnbaum directs “Rigoletto” in a manufacturing from 2006 starring Igor Golovatenko, Javier Camarena and Gilda Mané Galoyan.
Matthew Ozawa’s manufacturing of “Fidelio,” first seen on the San Francisco Opera in 2021, opens Sept. 26 starring tenor Russell Thomas and soprano Elza van den Heever.
Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)” begins Nov. 9 in a 2015 staging by Barbara Gaines. Conductor Erina Yashima makes her Lyric debut with a solid that features Peter Kellner, Federica Lombardi and Ying Fang.
Puccini’s “La Bohème” begins March 15, 2025, with Ailyn Pérez and Pene Pati in a staging initially conceived by Herbert Ross on the LA Opera in 1993. Melanie Bacaling directs in Chicago.
