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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
November 1 - 30, 2017
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roles to her repertoire – Santuzza (Düsseldorf/
Duisburg) and both Amneris and Carmen
(Basel, reprised in Frankfurt). The mezzo’s busy
concert career includes recent performances of
Berlioz’s
Les nuits d’été
, Verdi’s
Requiem
(both at
Frankfurt’s Alte Oper), Mahler’s
Symphony No.
2
(Stuttgart Philharmonic, CD), Mahler’s
Das
klagende Lied
(Wiener Konzerthaus) and BBC
Proms London (Mahler's
Rückert Lieder
).
AIN ANGER
(Hunding)
Lyric debut
One of today’s foremost
basses, Estonian-born
Ain Anger is in great
demand internationally
for key roles of the
German, Italian, and
Russian repertoires. He
resides in Vienna, where he has sung more
than 40 roles on the Vienna State Opera
stage, encompassing styles as varied as Mozart,
Verdi, Wagner, Massenet, Mussorgsky, and
Strauss. The current season features return
engagements at the Vienna State Opera as
Dosifei/
Khovanshchina
, Munich’s Bavarian
State Opera as Wagner’s Fafner and Hunding,
and the Opéra National de Paris as Pimen/
Boris
Godunov
. Especially celebrated in Wagner roles,
Anger counts among his successes Hunding
(Vienna, Houston Grand Opera, Oper
Frankfurt, CD), Fasolt/
Das Rheingold
(Vienna,
Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu), Hagen/
Götterdämmerung
(Canadian Opera Company,
Tokyo Spring Festival), Daland/
The Flying
Dutchman
(La Scala, Washington National
Opera), Pogner/
Die Meistersinger
(Vienna, San
Francisco Opera) and King Henry/
Lohengrin
(Vienna, Deutsche Oper Berlin). Recent
highlights also include his triumphant role
debut as Boris Godunov at the Deutsche
Oper Berlin, in a production by Richard Jones
that Anger reprised for his Covent Garden
debut as Pimen. The bass has recorded Vienna
Staatsoper productions of
Parsifal
(CD),
Die
Walküre
(CD), and
Die Meistersinger
(DVD).
Anger was awarded Estonia’s highly prestigious
Order of the White Star in 2013.
ALEXANDRA
L
o
BIANCO
(Helmwige)
Lyric debut
The American soprano
made her European
stage debut in 2016 as
Leonore/
Fidelio
(Vienna
State Opera), and also
scored a great success in the summer of 2017 as
Turandot (DesMoinesMetroOpera). LoBianco
returns to Europe next summer to make her
debut at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera as
Gerhilde/
Die Walküre
under the baton of Kirill
Petrenko. This season she also portrays Strauss’s
Ariadne at Austin Opera and Verdi’s Aida at
Seattle Opera. Her engagements during the
2016/17 season included a tour of Japan with
the Vienna State Opera as Helmwige, as well as
her debuts with Florida Grand Opera (Amelia/
Un ballo in maschera
) and The Dallas Opera
(Miss Jessel/
The Turn of the Screw
). Other career
highlights include Amelia (Madison Opera),
Aida (Opera Colorado), Tosca (Opera Maine,
Opera Grand Rapids, Minnesota Opera),
Donna Anna/
Don Giovanni
(Seattle Opera),
and Magda Sorel/Menotti’s
The Consul
(Opera
Santa Barbara). She joined the roster of the
Metropolitan Opera for its production of
Il
trovatore
. LoBianco has performed the complete
role of Brünnhilde with St. Louis’s Union
Avenue Opera.
WHITNEY
MORRISON
(Gerhilde)
Previously at Lyric:
Countess Ceprano/
Rigoletto
(2017/18).
The soprano, a first-
year Ryan Opera Center
member and a Chicago
native, earned her
bachelor’s degree in vocal music and pedagogy
at Alabama’s Oakwood University. While there
she portrayed Miss Pinkerton/Menotti’s
The
Old Maid and the Thief
and performed as a
soloist with the university’s prestigious Aeolians
ensemble. Morrison’s training also includes a
master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music
and study in Germany at the Neil Semer Vocal
Institute. Among her other performance credits
are an appearance at the Rochester Institute of
Technology’s celebration of Martin Luther King
Jr.’s legacy, “MLK Expressions”; her debut at
Rochester’s Kodak Hall singing Gershwin’s “My
Man’s Gone Now” with the Eastman Wind
Ensemble; and Donna Anna/
Don Giovann
i
with Chicago’s Floating Opera Company.
Morrison’s competition successes include
top prizes in the National Classical Singer
University Competition, the R. Nathaniel Dett
Club NANM Scholarship Competition, and the
Musicians Club of Women Competition. The
soprano is a two-time recipient of the UNCF
John Lennon Endowed Scholarship and a
former finalist in the Luminarts Classical Music
Competition.
Whitney Morrison is sponsored by
J. Thomas Hurvis.
LAURA WILDE
(
Ortlinde
)
Previously at Lyric:
Six roles since 2013/14,
most recently Freia/
Das
Rheingold
(2016/17);
Marianne Leitmetzerin/
Der Rosenkavalier
,
Anna/
Nabucco
(both
2015/16).
A native of Watertown, South Dakota, the
Ryan Opera Center alumna triumphed in her
recent international debut at London’s English
National Opera as Janáček’s Jenůfa. Wilde was
a Marion Roose Pullin artist-in-residence with
Arizona Opera for two seasons (
Romeo and
Juliet, Lucia di Lammermoor, Faust, Cavalleria
rusticana
). The soprano previously participated
in the young-artist programs of The Santa Fe
Opera (
King Roger
) and Opera Theatre of Saint
Louis (
The Death of Klinghoffer, A Little Night
Music
). Last summer she returned to OTSL
to star as Vitellia/
La clemenza di Tito
. Later
this season she will portray Laura/Korngold’s
Der Ring des Polykrates
(The Dallas Opera)
and Freia/
Das Rheingold
(Arizona Opera, Fort
Worth Opera Festival), and will also sing
Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 9
with the Charlotte
Symphony. Past concert work has included
the Elgin Symphony (Mahler’s
Symphony No.
4
; Bernstein’s
Symphony No. 1
“Jeremiah”),
Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Adrian Symphony
Orchestra, and Phoenix Symphony. A former
Metropolitan Opera National Council
Auditions semi-finalist, Wilde is the winner
of a 2016 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the
Richard Tucker Foundation and the 2016
Luminarts Women’s Voice Fellowship.
LINDSAY AMMANN
(Rossweisse)
Previously at Lyric:
Flosshilde/
Das Rheingold
(2016/17).
The American mezzo-
soprano has made
important
company
debuts in the
Ring
at the
Metropolitan Opera (Rossweisse/
Die Walküre
,
DVD) and Washington National Opera
(Erda/
Das Rheingold
, followed by Schwertleite/
Die Walküre
, Erda/
Siegfried
, and First
Norn/
Götterdämmerung
). She has also sung
Schwertleite at Toronto’s Canadian Opera
Company and returned there last season as the
First Norn. Ammann’s European appearances
include Geneva’s Grand Théâtre (Third Lady/
The Magic Flute
), Essen’s Aalto-Musiktheater
(Ježibaba/
Rusalka
, new production), and many
featured roles as a member of the Stuttgart
State Opera ensemble. She has also been
heard as Brangäne/
Tristan und Isolde
(Casals
Festival), Beatrice/
Le donne curiose
(Wolf Trap
Opera), and the Beggar Woman/
Sweeney Todd
(National Symphony Orchestra). Ammann
is an alumna of the Resident Artist Program
at Pittsburgh Opera (
Lucia di Lammermoor,
Rinaldo, Eugene Onegin, Falstaff
,
The Rape
of Lucretia
) and the Gerdine Young Artist
Program at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
(
Eugene Onegin, Madama Butterfly, Salome
).
Her concert appearances include the Pittsburgh
Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, and Sioux
County Oratorio and Symphony. Upcoming
engagements include Dame Quickly/
Falstaff
with Opera Omaha and the Old Lady/
Candide
with the South Dakota Symphony.