Tag Archives: Enrique Mazzola

On Feb. 6, a pair of Lyric Opera favorites, soprano Tamara Wilson and tenor Russell Thomas, teamed up with music director Enrique Mazzola to showcase excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic opus. Included were the shimmering overture to “La forza del destino,” favorite arias from “Don Carlos” and “Simon Boccanegra,” and mesmerizing duets from “Aida” and “Otello.” Rarely performed duets and arias rounded out the program, which the Lyric dubbed “Verdi Voices.” That concert is now enshrined on the Lyric website and can be streamed for free. To view, click here.  

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 …

The Lyric Opera of Chicago will showcase lesser-known gems by beloved Italian composers in a virtual concert curated and hosted by Lyric’s Music Director Designate Enrique Mazzola and presented by the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center. With Maestro Mazzola at the piano, members of the Ryan Opera Center 2020-21 ensemble will perform songs by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni, all lovingly selected by Mazzola. The ensemble includes sopranos Maria Novella Malfatti and Denis Vélez; mezzo-sopranos Katherine Beck, Katherine DeYoung and Kathleen Felty; tenors Martin Luther Clark and Lunga Eric Hallam; baritones Leroy Davis and Ricardo …

Anyone who has attended a presentation by Lyric Opera Music Director Designate Enrique Mazzola knows what a dynamic speaker he is. Now the whole world can bask in his unique presence via an original and engaging web series dubbed “Breaking Down the Score: Attila.” Each of the 12 episodes in this series features a personal interpretation and reading by Maestro Mazzola of a musical number from Verdi’s early opera “Attila.” Launched in October and running through mid-December, the entire series can be viewed by subscribing to the Lyric’s YouTube channel. To view current and previous episodes, click here.  

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. …

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 …

Eminent Italian conductor Enrique Mazzola has been named as Lyric Opera’s music director designate and will become Lyric’s music director beginning with the 2021-’22 season. The transition will be overseen by the Lyric’s acclaimed and beloved music director Sir Andrew Davis, who plans on concluding his two-decade-long tenure at the end of the 2020-’21 season. “I am thrilled that Enrique Mazzola has accepted Lyric’s invitation to become our next music director,” Lyric CEO Anthony Freud says. “He has accrued a wealth of international experience in his career to date, and he is tremendously well liked and respected by the Lyric …