Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 10 - Rising Stars in Concert

15 | Lyric Opera of Chicago EMILY RICHTER SOPRANO Previously at Lyric: First Peasant Girl / The Marriage of Figaro (2024/25). The first-year Ryan Opera Center soprano from Arlington, Virginia, was a national winner of the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. In 2025 she will participate in the Aix-en-Provence Festival’s Académie. She recently completed two years as a Resident Artist with Pittsburgh Opera (2022-2024). Role highlights during her tenure include the title role/ Iphigénie en Tauride , Countess/ Le nozze di Figaro , Ma/ Proving Up , and Ginevra/ Ariodante . In the 2023/24 Season, she made her Messiah debut with the Seattle Symphony and her Verdi Requiem debut with the Westmoreland Symphony. Richter has spent her summers as an apprentice artist at Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera, and the Seagle Festival. A first-prize winner of The Wirth Prize and The Mildred Miller Competition, she holds a Master’s Degree from McGill’s Schulich School of Music and a Bachelor’s of Music in Vocal Performance from Lawrence University. Emily Richter is sponsored by Lead Sponsor The C.G.Pinnell Family and cosponsors Amy & Paul Carbone and Susan M.Miller. IAN RUCKER BARITONE Previously at Lyric: Schaunard/ La Bohème (2024/25), Man in Bar/ Champion and Foreman/ Jen ˚ufa (both 2023/24), Moralès/ Carmen and Raimbaud/ Le Comte Ory (both 2022/23). The third-year Ryan Opera Center baritone from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where his roles included Count Almaviva/ The Marriage of Figaro and the title role/ The Barber of Seville . He has also appeared as Papageno/ The Magic Flute at Bloomington Chamber Opera and recently 4th Servant/ Capriccio at the Salzburg Festival. Rucker received a special award at the 2024 Neue Stimmen Competition in Germany and will sing the title role in Festival d’Aix-en-Provence’s upcoming production of The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor. He earned his bachelor’s degree in vocal performance at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he was heard in the title roles of Don Giovanni and Sweeney Todd , as well as Officer Lockstock/ Urinetown and Ernst Ludwig/ Cabaret . Concert engagements include Carmina Burana with the Northwest Indiana Symphony. Rucker is a former Palm Beach Opera Apprentice Artist and a former Aspen Music Festival Renée Fleming Artist. He recently received an Encouragement Award in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition (Wisconsin District) and first place in the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition. Ian Rucker is sponsored by Karen Petitte, Heidi Heutel Bohn, Julian Oettinger, and Jennifer L. Stone. FINN SAGAL BARITONE Previously at Lyric: A Policeman/ The Listeners (2024/25). The first-year Ryan Opera Center baritone from La Cañada Flintridge, California, has performed at Lincoln Center, 54 Below, and the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas with such luminaries as Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, and Kristin Chenoweth. Sagal won third prize at the 2024 Neue Stimmen Competition in Germany and first place at the 2025 Saengerbund Awards, and was awarded the 2025 Ginger and Jim Meyer Centennial Award by the American Opera Society of Chicago. He participated in the 2023 Merola Opera Program and, in 2022, the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS Program, where he returns in 2025 as a Fleming Fellowship Artist to sing Guglielmo/ Così fan tutte . He recently received a master’s degree at the Yale School of Music, where he performed the roles of Junius/ The Rape of Lucretia , the Tutor/ Le Comte Ory , and Nick Shadow/ The Rake’s Progress . He holds an undergraduate degree in vocal performance from UCLA. While there he appeared as Pluton/ Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux Enfers , and the title role/ Le nozze di Figaro . Finn Sagal is sponsored by Lead Sponsor the Estate of Lois Siegel and cosponsors Patricia A.Kenney & Gregory J.O’Leary and Jennifer Malpass. TRAVON D. WALKER TENOR Previously at Lyric: Parpignol/ La Bohème, Son/ Blue , 1st Prisoner/ Fidelio , Borsa/ Rigoletto (all 2024/25). The second-year Ryan Opera Center tenor recently received his master’s degree from Rice University, where he sang Sam Kaplan/ Street Scene . This season he debuted with Opera Philadelphia in The Anonymous Lover and with the North Carolina Symphony. Upcoming he will perform at Wolf Trap Opera as a 2025 Filene Artist. A native of Hinesville, Georgia, Walker completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music. While there, he made his operatic debut in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead . Walker has been a Studio Artist at Wolf Trap Opera and was invited to participate in Renée Fleming’s 2023 SongStudio and Joyce DiDonato’s 2024 Masterclass Series, both at Carnegie Hall, as well as the 2023 Britten Pears Young Artist Programme. Other engagements include the Erie Philharmonic and Houston Grand Opera (Jeremy Howard Beck’s Another City , world premiere). Walker received an Encouragement Award from the Kansas City District in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, the 2024 Best Vocal Artist Award from the American Opera Society, and the 2024 Luminarts Cultural Foundation Men’s Voice Fellowship. Travon D. Walker is sponsored by the Robert & Isabelle Bass Foundation, Inc, an Anonymous Donor, and the Boykins, Ford, and Mages families.