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P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
December 7, 2015 - January 17, 2016
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replacing an ill colleague, Brattaberg scored a
great success as Baron Ochs/
Der Rosenkavalier
at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam,
with Sir Simon Rattle conducting. The bass
has reprised the role at numerous companies,
including the Metropolitan Opera and Cincin-
nati Opera. In 2013 Brattaberg returned to the
Met for the worldwide live HD transmission
of
Parsifal
(DVD), portraying Titurel under
the baton of Daniele Gatti. Brattaberg has also
appeared at the opera houses of Saarbrücken,
Leipzig, Lübeck, and Essen, the Opéra Nation-
al de Paris, La Monnaie in Brussels, and Opéra
Lausanne.
ANTHONY CLARK
EVANS
(
Simon Thibault
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Seven roles since 2013-14,
most recently
Second Apprentice/
Wozzeck
(2015-16); Jailer/
Tosca
, Servant/
Capriccio
(both 2014-15).
A native of Owensboro, Kentucky, and a
third-year Ryan Opera Center member, the
baritone will be heard later this season in
Lyric Opera’s
Der Rosenkavalier
and in his
San Diego Opera debut as Sharpless/
Madama
Butterfly
. He debuted in Chicago in 2013 per-
forming in Bernstein’s
Songfest
at Ravinia. An
alumnus of Murray State University (Falstaff/
The Merry Wives of Windsor
), Evans is a former
apprentice artist with Arkansas’s Opera in the
Ozarks (Marcello
/La bohème,
Pish-Tush/
The
Mikado
). He recently gave his first professional
recital in Lexington, Kentucky. The bari-
tone attracted national attention as a Grand
Finals winner of the 2012 Metropolitan Opera
National Council Auditions. Since then he has
been awarded a career grant from the Licia
Albanese-Puccini Foundation, first prize in the
Giulio Gari Foundation Vocal Competition,
second prize in the Opera Index Vocal Com-
petition, a prize from the American Opera
Society, a Sara Tucker Study Grant, the Men’s
Voice Fellowship from the Luminarts Cultural
Foundation, and, in 2015, first prize in the
Marcello Giordani Foundation Competition
and top prize in The Dallas Opera Guild Vocal
Competition.
Anthony Clark Evans is sponsored
by
Richard O. Ryan
and
Richard W. Shepro
and Lindsay E. Roberts
.
TAKAOKI ONISHI
(
Father Arguedas
)
Lyric Opera debut
A first-year Ryan Opera
Center member and native
of Tokyo, Japan, the bari-
tone has recently received
top awards from the Gerda
Lissner International Vocal Competition, the
Opera Index Vocal Competition, the Licia
Albanese-Puccini International Vocal Com-
petition, the Loren L. Zachary Competition,
and the Giulio Gari Foundation Competi-
tion. For winning the first prize of the IFAC-
Juilliard Prize Singing Competition in Japan,
Onishi received a full scholarship to attend
The Juilliard School, where he appeared in Sir
Peter Maxwell Davies’s
Kommilitonen!
(U.S.
premiere),
La scala di seta
,
Don Giovanni
,
Eugene Onegin
, and
The Marriage of Figaro
.
He has also been heard as Jesus/Bach’s
St.
Matthew Passion
at Lincoln Center’s Alice
Tully Hall. In 2014 he created the leading
role of The Man/Marty Regan’s
The Memory
Stone
(world premiere) with Houston Grand
Opera’s East+West program. Highlights last
season included two appearances at Carnegie
Hall (Vaughan Williams’s
Hodie
,
Carmina
Burana
). A former fellowship student of the
Aspen Music Festival and School, Onishi has
also participated in Saito Kinen Festival in
Japan and Germany’s Internationale Meisters-
inger Akademie.
Takaoki Onishi is sponsored by
The Handa Foundation
.
BRADLEY SMOAK
(
General Benjamín
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Five roles since 2014-15,
most recently
First Apprentice/
Wozzeck
,
Antonio/
The Marriage
of Figaro
(both 2015-16);
First SS Officer/
The Passenger
(2014-15).
A native of North Carolina and a second-year
Ryan Opera Center member, the bass-baritone
debuted at Lyric Opera last season in
Capriccio
.
Smoak has been heard with numerous compa-
nies nationwide, with particular success at Op-
era Theatre of Saint Louis, where he has sung
King of Hearts/Unsuk Chin’s
Alice in Won-
derland
(American premiere), Pirate King/
The
Pirates of Penzance
, Masetto/
Don Giovanni
,
Antonio/
The Marriage of Figaro
, and Second
Soldier/
Salome
. Earlier this year he appeared in
L’enfant et les sortilèges
and
Pelléas et Mélisande
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Smoak
has also performed with Boston Lyric Opera
(
Les contes d’Hoffmann
), Palm Beach Opera
(
Otello
,
Don Giovanni, Carmen
), Sarasota Op-
era (
La bohème
,
The Crucible
), Opera Omaha
(
Carmen
,
The Magic Flute
,
Fidelio
), Opera
North, Opera Charleston, Opera Roanoke,
Annapolis Opera, and DuPage Opera Theatre.
The bass-baritone made his international op-
eratic debut at Ireland’s Wexford Festival Op-
era in
The Ghosts of Versailles
and Donizetti’s
Maria Padilla
, returning for Smetana’s
The Kiss
and Pergolesi’s
La serva padrona
. He holds a
bachelor of fine arts degree in music theater
from Illinois Wesleyan University.
Bradley
Smoak is sponsored by
The Elizabeth F. Cheney
Foundation
.
DIANA NEWMAN
(
Beatriz
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Clorinda/
Cinderella
(2015-16).
A first-year Ryan Opera
Center member, the Amer-
ican soprano will return
to Lyric Opera’s stage later this season in
Der
Rosenkavalier
. She is an alumna of the Univer-
sity of Southern California (Monteverdi’s Pop-
pea, Mozart’s Pamina, Miranda/Lee Hoiby’s
The Tempest
, Lauretta/
Gianni Schicchi
, Belisa/
Conrad Susa’s
The Love of Don Perlimplin
).
She has also been heard as the Page/
Rigoletto
with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her exten-
sive concert appearances include Bach Can-
tatas 211 and 209 (Whittier Bach Festival),
Mozart’s “Exsultate, jubilate” (USC Alumni
Orchestra), Lukas Foss’s
Time Cycle
(Aspen
Music Festival and School), Samuel Barber’s
Knoxville: Summer of 1915
(American Youth
Symphony), Frank Ticheli’s
Songs of Love and
Life
and
Angels in the Architecture
(both at Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin), George Crumb’s
Madrigals Book IV
(Music Academy of the
West), and Francesco Cilluffo’s
The Land to
Life Again
(world premiere, UCLA Camarades
Ensemble). Newman is an alumna of Ravinia’s
Steans Music Institute, Music Academy of the
West, the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar, the
Aspen Opera Theater Center, and the Oberlin
in Italy program.
Diana Newman is sponsored
by
Susan Ipsen
and
Mrs. J. W. Van Gorkom.
ANNIE ROSEN
(
Edith Thibault
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Tisbe/
Cinderella
(2015-16).
A first-year Ryan Opera
Center member and a
native of New Haven,