Although the present Lyric Opera season has eight more weeks to run, the musical new year will be upon us very soon, so it is not too early to look ahead at the company`s plans for its 1987-88 season at the Civic Opera House. Lyric is enjoying one of its most successful seasons ever, from both artistic and financial standpoints; thus far the performances have been playing to an average 90 percent of capacity. Worries among company officials that expanding the season from eight to nine operas, with a corresponding increase in ticket prices, might cause some slackening at the box office would seem to have been groundless.
And so the Lyric is going into its 1987-88 season with the kind of artistic confidence that comes from having won the loyalty of its subscribers and from having convinced its supporters in the business community that general manager Ardis Krainik is running the company in a fiscally responsible manner. Chicago business is eager to get behind Krainik`s winning team: The fact that four major foundations are underwriting productions next season is clear proof of that.
Let`s take a closer look at the operas and artists that the Lyric will be presenting during its 1987-88 season of 71 performances.
Chicago opera traditionally means opera with big-name international singers. With very few exceptions, the 1987-88 roster reveals that Lyric is holding its own in the bidding wars for the cream of the vocal crop.
Singers making their Lyric Opera debuts next season will include Shirley Verrett, Frederica von Stade, Susan Dunn, Felicity Lott, Marie McLaughlin, Rockwell Blake and Victor Braun. Singers returning to the roster include Agnes Baltsa, Piero Cappuccilli, Giuliano Ciannella, Maria Ewing, Jerry Hadley, Dimitri Kavrakos, Evelyn Lear, Catherine Malfitano, Sherrill Milnes, Paolo Montarsolo, Siegmund Nimsgern, Timothy Nolen, Leo Nucci, Luciano Pavarotti, Ruggero Raimondi, Samuel Ramey, Renata Scotto, Neil Shicoff, Cheryl Studer, Kiri Te Kanawa, Alan Titus and Anna Tomowa-Sintow.
Conductors new to the Lyric are James Conlon, Andrew Davis, Dennis Russell Davies and Christopher Keene. Returning conductors are Bruno Bartoletti, Gabriele Ferro, Jean Fournet, John Pritchard and Michael Tilson Thomas. More than half the season will be entrusted to American conductors, a move that reflects the growing influence of native musicians in the global village of opera.
But if the opera pit will sing with an American accent, the stage will reflect a European outlook. Stage directors whose work will be given for the first time at the Lyric are Peter Hall, director of the National Theatre of Great Britain; Yuri Ljubimov, the Soviet emigre and former director of Moscow`s Taganka Theatre; and David Pountney, director of productions for the English National Opera. They will join returning regisseurs Giulio Chazalettes, Willy Decker, Sonja Frisell, Antonello Madau-Diaz, Italo Tajo and Grischa Asagaroff.
The Lyric season will begin and end with two popular Verdi operas that the company has not presented since the early 1960s.
— The season opener, ”Il Trovatore,” will feature a formidable cast:
Tomowa-Sintow as Leonora, Pavarotti as Manrico, Verrett as Azucena and Cappuccilli as the Count di Luna. Pavarotti is scheduled to sing the first five performances; Ciannella, the remaining three. The production will be conducted by Bartoletti, staged by Frisell and designed by Nicola Benois; it is co-owned by Lyric and the opera companies of Miami, Dallas and Washington, and funded by a grant from the Sara Lee Corp. There will be eight performances, beginning with the gala opening on Sept. 18.
— Concluding the season will be Lyric`s second Verdi work of the season, ”La Forza del Destino,” to be given seven performances, Jan. 16 through Feb. 6, 1988. Dunn will take the role of Leonora, with Giuseppe Giacomini, Sharon Graham, Nucci and Kavrakos featured in leading parts. Conlon will conduct. Decker will stage the Pier Luigi Samaritani production, borrowed from San Francisco Opera.
The Lyric season will consist of two new productions, Mozart`s ”Le Nozze di Figaro” and Johann Strauss` ”Die Fledermaus.”
— Hall will direct ”Marriage of Figaro,” in designs by John Bury, made possible by a gift from Dr. and Mrs. Edwin J. De Costa and the Walter Heller Foundation. The cast will include Ramey as Figaro, Ewing as Susanna, Von Stade as Cherubino, Raimondi and Lott as the Almavivas and Artur Korn as Dr. Bartolo. Davis will conduct all eight performances, the first of which is Nov. 14.
— ”Fledermaus,” opening Dec. 12 for 10 performances (through Jan. 21, 1988), will reunite the production team of Chazalettes and designer Ulisse Santicchi, under Pritchard`s baton. Te Kanawa and Titus will head a cast that includes McLaughlin, Hadley, Nolen, Hanna Schwarz, Donald Adams and James Atherton. The Julius Frankel Foundation is assuming production costs.
— New to the Lyric repertory will be ”Satyagraha,” by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. The first opera by an American presented here since Giannini`s ”The Harvest” in 1961, ”Satyagraha” comprises episodes in the early life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, whose philosophy of non-violent resistance
(satyagraha in Sanskrit) was to become an important political weapon during the American civil rights struggle of the 1960s.
Glass` large-scale operas, including ”Einstein on the Beach” and
”Akhnaten,” have been produced by New York City Opera and other leading companies. Glass remains a controversial figure who seems to provoke equal measures of critical damnation and praise. Yet audiences respond to Glass`
repetitive music with an enthusiasm that few serious composers in recent years have been able to inspire. No doubt about it–Glass has become a musico-theatrical force to be reckoned with.
”Satyagraha” eventually could justify its adherents` claims as a seminal work in the development of a contemporary American music theater. In the meantime, the Chicago premiere (the first time any of Glass` large-scale works has been performed locally) represents the sort of venturesome statement with which Krainik intends to establish the Lyric`s commitment to presenting new opera by native composers.
”Satyagraha” will reunite the principal artistic figures of the recent New York City Opera production: conductor Keene and singers Douglas Perry and Claudia Cummings. Pountney will serve as stage director. The Robert Israel designs originated at the Netherlands Opera. Marshall Field`s will underwrite the seven performances, scheduled to begin Sept. 28. The opera will be sung in Sanskrit, with English captions.
— The season`s single French opera will be Gounod`s ”Faust,” a revival of the Samaritani production that opened Lyric`s 25th anniversary season in 1979. This time the principal singers will be Studer as Marguerite, Shicoff as Faust and Ramey as Mephistopheles, with Fournet conducting and Madau-Diaz directing. ”Faust” is scheduled to open Oct. 13 for eight performances.
— Next comes Rossini`s ”L`Italiana in Algeri,” with Baltsa, Blake, Montarsolo and Nolen. The Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production, borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera, will be staged by Asagaroff and conducted by Ferro.
”Italian Girl in Algiers” will open Oct. 28, for seven performances.
— One of the major gaps in Lyric`s 20th-Century repertory will be closed next Nov. 24 with the company premiere of Alban Berg`s ”Lulu.” The seven performances mark the first time the full, three-act version of Berg`s 1934 opera will have been performed in Chicago.
Malfitano will portray the most fatale of operatic femmes fatale, with Lear appearing as the Countess Geschwitz. Assuming multiple roles will be Michael Myers, Hilda Harris, Ken Ruta, Braun, Adams and Atherton. Davies will oversee the lush, decadent agonies of the Berg score, with Ljubimov directing in the David Borovskij designs from Turin`s Teatro Regio. The AT&T Foundation is underwriting the ”Lulu” production.
— That hardy Puccini perennial, ”Tosca,” will return for nine performances beginning Jan. 9, 1988, with Scotto in the title role and Ciannella as Cavaradossi. Milnes and Nimsgern will share the part of Scarpia. Tajo will perform double duty as the Sacristan and stage director. Thomas conducts, in the familiar Pier Luigi Pizzi production.
So positive has been the public response to the Lyric`s use of projected English captions that the company plans to provide English titles for all performances during the 1987-88 season–all, that is, save the 10 performances of ”Die Fledermaus,” which will be sung in English.
Finally, a word for those operaphiles who are wondering what has happened to the American premiere of Luciano Berio`s opera ”La Vera Storia,” Krainik said the work is ”very much on our thoughts and is still on our agenda”–but could not say when the premiere will be rescheduled.
Of one thing, however, Krainik is quite certain: Lyric subscribers may expect to receive their renewal brochures around the middle of January, 1987.
