The pandemic may have put a crimp in her plans, but Maria Novella Malfatti is making the most of her chances to learn and grow at the Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center. The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center is one of the most prestigious training programs in the world for emerging opera singers, offering world-class opportunities for professional development to its participants and introducing Windy City audiences to tomorrow’s stars. For Italian soprano Maria Novella Malfatti, the Ryan Center is a dream come true in her lifelong love affair with music. Malfatti remembers becoming obsessed with opera at a …

With the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2019-20 season cut short by a pandemic that has brought normal life to a standstill, any ray of hope is both welcome and needed. The company has offered exactly that, mapping out a 2020-21 lineup full of Italian classics, talent and hidden treasures. Kicking things off in mid-September is a spectacular double bill of one-act operas: Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana” and Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci.” A powerhouse pairing of searing dramas, the production will be conducted by Carlo Rizzi and will feature the Lyric debut of baritone Ambrogio Maestri as Alfio in Cavalleria and Tonio in Pagliacci. …

As any music historian will tell you, composer Gaetano Donizetti didn’t intend his three operas about Tudor queens as a trilogy. Written in separate years with different librettists, the operas focus on climactic and at times highly fictionalized moments in the lives of Anne Boleyn in “Anna Bolena,” Mary Queen of Scots in “Maria Stuarda” and Queen Elizabeth I in “Roberto Devereux.” While long looked upon individually as proving grounds for the greatest divas of our time, the trio was forever linked when Beverly Sills sang all three roles with the New York City Opera in the 1970s. Jumping forward …

The Lyric’s incoming maestro brings with him impressive credentials and a towering passion for his repertoire, his fellow artists, his new audience and his new home. When Anthony Freud stepped onto the Civic Opera House stage before the second act of “Luisa Miller” on Oct. 20, the audience gave a cry of dismay. They knew what announcement was to come from the general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago: Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja was ill, and could not continue singing. After American soprano Toni Marie Palmertree stepped in to replace ailing star Krassimira Stoyanova as Luisa at the top …

The second collaboration with the librettist Da Ponte, “Don Giovanni” is rightfully considered one of Mozart’s highest accomplishments and is one of the gold standards of the operatic repertory. Based on the figure of Don Juan, Don Giovanni is a serial seducer, causing mayhem indiscriminately until he reaps his just rewards. The Lyric Opera of Chicago opened their run of “Don Giovanni” on November 14 to a packed and appreciative house. Running through December 8, it’s a production well worth seeing. Transported to 1920s Spain, the sets and costumes are a feast for the eyes. A true ensemble piece, the …