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Lyric Opera of Chicago

 
Lyric Opera of Chicago

 
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Lyric Opera of Chicago
 
 
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Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
 companies in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. It was founded in Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno
Nicola Rescigno

Nicola Rescigno was an Italy-United States conductor , particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory....
 and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas
Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greeks soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the twentieth century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts....
's American debut in Norma
Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet....
.






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Civic Opera House 060528
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
 companies in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. It was founded in Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno
Nicola Rescigno

Nicola Rescigno was an Italy-United States conductor , particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory....
 and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas
Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greeks soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the twentieth century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts....
's American debut in Norma
Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet....
. The company was re-organized by Carol Fox in 1956 under its present name.

Production history

In addition to the standard operatic repertoire, Lyric also presents contemporary works. Recent productions have included Harbison's
John Harbison

John Harris Harbison is a composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.Harbison won the prestigious BMI Foundation's Student Composer Awards for composition at the age of sixteen in 1954....
 The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the United States author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922....
 (2000-2001), Weill's
Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill , was a Germany, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the theatre....
 Street Scene
Street Scene (opera)

Street Scene is a Broadway theatre musical theater or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill , Langston Hughes , and Elmer Rice , based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Play of the same name by Rice....
 (2001-2002), and Floyd's
Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd is an United States opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South. His best known opera, Susannah , is based a story in the so-called Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary, rural Tennessee, and is set in a Southern dialect....
 Susannah
Susannah

Susannah is an opera in two acts composed by USA opera composer Carlisle Floyd while he was on the piano faculty at Florida State University....
 and Sondheim's
Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for theatre and film, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards and the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize....
 Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd (musical)

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 Tony Award?winning Musical theatre thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a libretto by Hugh Wheeler....
 (2002-2003), and John Adams
John Adams

John Adams was an Politics of the United States and the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States , after being the List of Vice Presidents of the United States Vice President of the United States for two terms....
' Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic

Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary minimalist American composer John Coolidge Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005....
 directed by Peter Sellars.

Composer William Bolcom
William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom is an United States composer and piano. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, three Grammy Awards, and the Detroit Music Award....
 wrote his most recent opera for Lyric, A Wedding
A Wedding (opera)

A Wedding is a comic opera based on Robert Altman's 1979 film A Wedding and was composed by William Bolcom with a libretto written by Robert Altman and Arnold Weinstein....
, based on the 1978 film of the same name directed by Robert Altman
Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman was an United Statesn film director known for making Cinema of the United States that are highly Naturalism , but with a stylized perspective....
. It premiered during Lyric's 50th-anniversary season.

The Lyric Opera productions were broadcast and nationally syndicated by WFMT
WFMT

WFMT is a fine arts and classical music FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, Illinois. The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two PBS television stations....
 Radio Network, from 1971 until 2001. The broadcasts ceased then because of a labor dispute with the Chicago Federation of Musicians, American Guild Musical Artists and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, over broadcast fees for musicians. The dispute was resolved at the 11th hour for the October 21, 2006 premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic music and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Strauss was also a prominent Conducting....
's opera Salome
Salome (opera)

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German language libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann?s German translation of the French language play Salome by Oscar Wilde....
 starring Deborah Voigt
Deborah Voigt

Deborah Voigt is an United States opera singer. Voigt is known for her vibrant dramatic soprano voice which easily soars over heavy and dense instrumentation....
.

Syndicated broadcast of the Lyric Opera resumed in May 2007 on the WFMT
WFMT

WFMT is a fine arts and classical music FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, Illinois. The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two PBS television stations....
 network, which includes XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio

XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television....
.

Operations

William Mason
William Mason

William Mason may refer to:*William Mason , American machinist and inventor working for Samuel Colt*William Mason , American composer and pianist...
 is the current General Director of Lyric Opera, a position he has held since November 1997. Mason has been with the company for over 40 years. Sir Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis (conductor)

Sir Andrew Frank Davis Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom Conducting....
 is Lyric's music director and principal conductor, a post he has occupied since in September 2000. He led three complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen

Der Ring des Nibelungen is a literature cycle of four epic poetry music dramas by the Germany composer Richard Wagner. The operas are based loosely on characters from the Sagas and the Nibelungenlied....
 in the 2004-2005 season to mark the company's 50th anniversary. Danny Newman
Danny Newman

Danny Newman was the long-time press agent for the Lyric Opera of Chicago from its founding in 1954 until his retirement in 2002. Newman was known for increasing the use of subscription programs to build audiences for performing arts....
 was the company's long-time press agent from 1954 until his retirement in the 2001/02 season; Newman is largely credited as the founder of subscription-based arts marketing, the standard economic model for not-for-profit arts organizations in the United States. Philip David Morehead
Philip David Morehead

Philip David Morehead is the Head of Music Staff of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center. His previous positions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago have included the Music Administrator and Chorus Master....
 is head of music staff.

Civic Opera House

For details, see Civic Opera House
Civic Opera House (Chicago)

The Civic Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings....


The company's permanent home is the Civic Opera House
Civic Opera House (Chicago)

The Civic Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings....
, a building which it rented from 1954 until after the 1993 renovations. It is a 1929 structure with an Art Deco
Art Deco

Art Deco was a popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts and film....
 interior. Its 3,563-seat capacity makes it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 after the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The interior was named The Ardis Krainik Theatre in 1996 in honor of Ardis Krainik
Ardis Krainik

Ardis Joan Krainik was an United States mezzo-soprano opera singer who spent her entire career at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where she served as general director from 1982 until her death in 1997....
, the General Director from 1982 to 1997, who was responsible for its renovation from 1993 onwards.

Sources

  • Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5


External links