8 / 24
6
My Lyric colleagues and I invariably look forward to the annual
Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park
concert with great
excitement. We cherish this event as our opportunity to offer
a special gift to the city, and it’s with the greatest pleasure that
we present the magnificent talents of our star singers, orchestra,
and chorus. I’m so pleased that Lyric’s world-renowned music
director, Sir Andrew Davis, who has always hugely enjoyed
performing at Millennium Park, is on the podium for this concert.
We thank Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cultural
Commissioner Mark Kelly for once again making the Pritzker
Pavilion available to us. Lyric is also grateful to
98.7
WFMT,
whose live broadcast will bring the performance to listeners
unable to make it to the Park.
In recent seasons it’s been our custom to feature a number of operas from the current
season in our Millennium Park programs, and tonight’s concert is no exception. You’ll hear
excerpts from seven operas in Lyric’s 2017/18 repertoire. What marvelous pieces they
are: Gluck’s noble
Orphée et Eurydice
, Verdi’s powerfully dramatic
Rigoletto
, Wagner’s
incomparably moving
Die Walküre
, Puccini’s spectacular
Turandot
, Bizet’s exotic gem
The Pearl Fishers
, Bellini’s matchlessly elegant
I puritani
, and Gounod’s exquisite romance,
Faust
. Although Mozart’s
Così fan tutte
isn’t represented tonight, you can look forward to
that captivating work this season as well. We do have Mozart on the program,
The Marriage of Figaro
, plus wonderful music from three Lyric favorites – Donizetti’s
Don Pasquale
, Tchaikovsky’s
Eugene Onegin
, and Massenet’s
Werther
.
This season at Lyric, we’re also thrilled to bring you Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Tim Rice’s iconic
Jesus Christ Superstar
; a riveting new American work, Gregory Spears’s
Fellow Travelers,
an exciting concert commemorating the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein;
and an eagerly anticipated recital by Polish tenor superstar Piotr Beczała.
I want to offer Lyric’s deepest thanks to our lead sponsor, closerlook, inc. and our
cosponsors: Rhoda L. and Henry S. Frank, an Anonymous Donor, Amy and Paul Carbone,
Crain-Maling Foundation, Fifth Third Bank, Annie & Greg Jones Family Foundation, Sipi
Metals Corp., Lake Geneva Chapter, Allan and Elaine Muchin, the Komarek-Hyde-McQueen
Foundation/Patricia Hyde, and the Music Performance Trust Fund and Film Funds.
Have a great evening at Millennium Park. I hope to see you again throughout the season!
Anthony Freud
FROM THE GENERAL DIRECTOR
STEVELEONARD