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L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
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September 26 - October 24, 2015
despite my having conducted everything Berg
ever wrote that needs a conductor! But it’s
also long overdue here [the last production
was in 1993-94] – it’s one of the great pieces.”
The British conductor’s stature as one of
today’s great Straussians has had everything
to do with Lyric’s presentations of
Capriccio
(company premiere, 1994-95; revival, 2014-
15) and
Die Frau ohne Schatten
(2007-08).
Generally the first engagements confirmed in
Davis’s calendar are what he’s conducting at
Lyric: “My time commitment here is pretty
well laid out until 2020, with just a few ‘areas
for maneuvers,’ so to speak.”
When Freud, Davis, and Melinat get
down to actual planning and prioritizing, they
consider stars, familiar titles, unfamiliar titles,
and historic importance (say, a world premiere
or an American premiere). In thinking about last
season, certain pieces were about the title rather
than about stars (
The Passenger
, for example),
whereas the opposite was true of
Capriccio
and
Anna Bolena.
After ten years
Don Giovanni
was
due to return, and Lyric was able to put together
an outstanding cast in a new production. Davis
had been going through the major Wagner
operas at Lyric, but hadn’t yet done
Tannhäuser
,
which hadn’t been heard at Lyric in well over a
quarter-century. The closing years of this decade
will include a new production of Wagner’s
monumental
Ring
cycle, a work Sir Andrew is
eager to revisit after triumphing with his first
Ring
at Lyric in 2004-05.
WhenLyric looks at balancing the repertoire
within any season, a major consideration is
orchestra time: “In our orchestra contract,”
explains Melinat, “each performance up to
four hours in duration counts as four hours of
service from the orchestra. If you do
Lulu
at
3:58, it’s four hours, but
Elektra
, at 1:45, also
counts as four hours. The orchestra receives
additional payment if the performance runs
over four hours. Because of that time, there’s
only one very long title each season [
Der
Rosenkavalier
in 2015-16]. It can have an effect
on scheduling once you get beyond a certain
length of performance.”
A conscious effort is made every season
to include titles that show off not only the
company’s renowned orchestra, but also its
equally celebrated chorus. In 2015-16 Lyric
has an average, balanced season in terms of
the amount of choral singing per opera: one
demanding title (
Nabucco
), a few medium
titles, and some smaller titles, although the
men’s workload is compounded by their
not having an opera off this year. Choral
requirements may involve not just Lyric’s
regular chorus, but also the supplementary
chorus; this means “not doing a whole season
of pieces like
Aida, Nabucco
, and
Fidelio,
”
Programming the season at Lyric Opera is the responsibility of general director Anthony Freud (left)
and music director Sir Andrew Davis (right).
TODD ROSENBERG
Operas whose recent productions at Lyric were inspired in large part by Sir Andrew Davis’s enthusiasm for them include Berg’s
Lulu in 2008-09
(Wolfgang Schöne and Marlis Petersen, left), Dvořák’s
Rusalka
in 2013-14 (Ana María Martínez, center), and Strauss’s
Die Frau ohne Schatten
in 2007-08 (Deborah Voigt and Jill Grove, right).
TODD ROSENBERG
DAN REST
DAN REST
ROBERT KUSEL