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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
30
|
February 22 - March 19, 2016
JASON SLAYDEN
(
Tybalt
)
Lyric Opera debut
The American tenor, who
will appear at Opera Santa
Barbara (
Gianni Schicchi
)
and at the Berkshire Opera
Festival (
Madama Butterfly
)
later this season, recently made his role debut
as Alfredo/
La traviata
at Cedar Rapids Opera
Theatre and performed Rodolfo/
La bohème
at Virginia Opera. Previous seasons brought
Slayden to Florida Grand Opera (Ferrando/
Così fan tutte
), Des Moines Metro Opera
(Romeo/
Romeo and Juliet
), Austin Lyric Opera
and Wolf Trap Opera (Don Ottavio/
Don
Giovanni
), Arizona Opera and Vancouver
Opera (Rodolfo/
La bohème
), Minnesota Opera
(Laërte/Ambroise Thomas’s
Hamlet
), The
Santa Fe Opera (Andres/
Wozzeck
, Puccini’s
Rodolfo), and Gotham Chamber Opera
(Martinů’s
Alexandre Bis
and
Comedy on the
Bridge
). In 2013-14 Slayden made several Verdi
role debuts, including the Duke of Mantua/
Rigoletto
(Opera Memphis, subsequently at
Arizona Opera), Gabriele Adorno/
Simon
Boccanegra
(Kentucky Opera), and Cassio/
Otello
(Nashville Opera). In concert, Slayden
has performed with the Dayton Philharmonic
(Rossini’s
Stabat Mater
), the Seattle Youth
Symphony and the Jacksonville Symphony
(Verdi’s
Messa da Requiem
), and the Utah
Symphony Orchestra (Berlioz’s
Romeo and
Juliet
). A 2011 Metropolitan Opera National
Council Auditions semi-finalist and former
young artist at Seattle Opera (Uldino/
Attila
,
title role/
Werther
, Ernesto/
Don Pasquale
)
and The Santa Fe Opera (First Priest/
The
Magic Flute
), Slayden holds a Sullivan Career
Grant, first prize from the Gerda Lissner
Foundation, and a George London Foundation
encouragement award.
DAVID GOVERTSEN
(
Duke of Verona
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Six roles since 2011-12,
most recently La Roche
and the Majordomo/
Capriccio
(2014-15); the
Bonze/
Madama Butterfly
(2013-14); Ortel/
Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg
(2012-13).
The Illinois-born bass-baritone, a Ryan
Opera Center alumnus, attracted attention
at Chicago Opera Theater in spring 2014 as
Death/Ullmann’s
The Emperor of Atlantis
and
the Peasant/Orff’s
Die Kluge
. He appeared
last season on short notice as Arkel/
Pelléas et
Mélisande
(Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and
as soloist in James MacMillan’s
Quickening
(Grant Park Orchestra). Among his other
Chicago appearances are Mozart’s Don
Giovanni (AmericanChamberOpera) Puccini’s
Gianni Schicchi (Main Street Opera), Rossini’s
Don Magnifico (Candid Concert Opera),
Matthias Pintscher’s
Songs from Solomon’s
Garden
(International Beethoven Festival), and
Britten’s
Songs and Proverbs of William Blake
(College of DuPage). A former apprentice
artist at Central City Opera and The Santa Fe
Opera (King Basilio/Lewis Spratlan’s
Life Is a
Dream
), the bass-baritone has also portrayed
Eiler/Mozart’s
The Impresario
and the Bonze/
Stravinsky’s
The Nightingale
(Santa Fe Opera),
Mozart’s Sarastro and Figaro (Northwestern
University), Raimondo/
Lucia di Lammermoor
(Main Street Opera), and Collatinus/
The
Rape of Lucretia
(Chicago Fringe Opera).
His concert engagements include
Messiah
(Metropolis Chamber Orchestra) and Bach
cantatas (Madison Bach Musicians, Bach Week
Festival). With Riccardo Muti conducting
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Govertsen
has appeared at both Symphony Center and
Carnegie Hall as the Herald/
Otello
and an
Apparition/
Macbeth
.
TAKAOKI ONISHI
(
Count Paris
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Father Arguedas/
Bel Canto
(2015-16).
A first-year Ryan Opera
Center member and native
of Tokyo, Japan, the
baritone has recently received top awards
from the Gerda Lissner International Vocal
Competition, the Opera Index Vocal
Competition, the Licia Albanese-Puccini
International Vocal Competition, the Loren
L. Zachary Competition, and the Giulio Gari
Foundation Competition. 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 the title role/
Eugene
Onegin
, as Count Almaviva/
The Marriage of
Figaro
, and in
Don Giovanni
, Rossini’s
La
scala di seta
, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s
Kommilitonen!
(U.S. premiere). He has also
been heard as Jesus/
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
(
Carmina Burana
, Vaughan Williams’s
Hodie
).
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 Meistersinger
Akademie.
Takaoki Onishi is sponsored by
The
Handa Foundation
.
ANTHONY CLARK
EVANS
(
Gregorio
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Nine roles since 2013-14,
most recently Waiter/
Der Rosenkavalier
, Simon
Thibault/
Bel Canto
,
Second Apprentice/
Wozzeck
(all 2015-16).
A native of Owensboro, Kentucky, and a third-
year member of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center,
the baritone will be heard later this season
in his San Diego Opera debut as Sharpless/
Madama Butterfly
. Evans studied voice at
Murray State University, where his roles
included Falstaff/
The Merry Wives of Windsor
.
He debuted in Chicago in 2013 in Bernstein’s
Songfest
at Ravinia. The baritone is a former
apprentice artist with Arkansas’s Opera in
the Ozarks, where he portrayed Marcello
/
La bohème
and
Pish-Tush/
The Mikado
. He
recently gave his first professional recital in
Lexington, Kentucky. Evans 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 Competition, 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
.
MINGJIE LEI
(
Benvolio
)
Previously at Lyric Opera:
Marschallin’s Major
Domo/
Der Rosenkavalier
(2015-16).
A native of Hengyang,
China, and a first-year
Ryan Opera Center
member, the tenor recently completed a
professional studies certificate at Philadelphia’s
Curtis Institute of Music, where his roles
included Nemorino/
L’elisir d’amore
, Don