Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 10 - Renée Fleming

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 12 RENÉE FLEMING SOPRANO Previously at Lyric: 10 roles since 1993, most recently Hanna Glawari/ The Merry Widow (2015/16), The Countess/ Capriccio (2014/15). Renée Fleming is internationally celebrated for her vocal and dramatic artistry, as well as her dedicated advocacy for the powerful impacts of the creative arts in health. A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree and winner of five Grammy awards and the U.S. National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. In 2024 at the Metropolitan Opera, she reprised her role in The Hours , an opera based on the award-winning novel and film. This winter, she returns to the Opéra National de Paris with her acclaimed portrayal of Pat Nixon in Nixon in China . Her anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness was published in 2024. A prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience, she created a live program called Music and Mind , which she has presented in more than 70 cities around the world. The Renée Fleming NeuroArts Investigator Awards fund interdisciplinary research projects by early career scientists in collaboration with creative artists. Fleming appeared at Lyric in the 2022/23 Season in The Brightness of Light with Rod Gilfry and the Lyric Opera Orchestra under Enrique Mazzola. She previously served as curator of Jimmy López and Nilo Cruz’s Bel Canto (2015/16), Lyric’s tenth new opera commission, and spearheaded Chicago Voices , a groundbreaking Lyric Unlimited initiative during 2016 and 2017 that engaged audiences through participatory arts experiences and dynamic cross-genre programming. Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Renée has sung with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Josh Groban, Dead and Company, and Joan Baez. Co-Artistic Director of the Aspen Opera Center and VocalArts at the Aspen Music Festival, Fleming is also Artist Development Advisor at Wolf Trap Opera. Other awards include the 2023 Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, and honorary doctorates from 10 major universities. INON BARNATAN PIANIST Lyric debut Highlights this season for the acclaimed pianist include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Stefan Jackiw, violin, and Hayoung Choi, cello, at the Baltimore Symphony with Music Director Jonathon Heyward, concerto performances including Rhapsody in Blue with the Dallas Symphony and Music Director Fabio Luisi, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Minnesota Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Charlotte Symphony. Solo recital appearances this season include Tippet Rise Art Center, Noe Music, Tryon Concert Association, and a return to Wigmore Hall. Continuing with Pomegranate Arts’ project of the complete Etudes of Philip Glass, he will appear this season at Krannert Center and University Musical Society. As a collaborator, he continues his long-term partnerships with cellist Alisa Weilerstein in duo recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Spivey Hall, and McCallum Theatre; and with Renée Fleming at Cal Performances, Schubert Club, and Philharmonic Society of Orange County. He will make his debut at the Taipei Music Festival and repeat his Fauré Piano Quartet program with violinist James Ehnes, violist Jonathan Vinocour, and cellist Raphael Bell at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Seattle Chamber Music Society. Barnatan appears regularly with the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors. He was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic from 2014 to 2017 under then Music Director Alan Gilbert, and has performed regularly with the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the BBC Symphony at the Proms, and most major U.S. orchestras. Abroad he has appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Zurich Tonhalle, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, and the London, Hong Kong, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics. He has given complete Beethoven concerto cycles with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, played Copland’s Piano Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and toured the U.S. with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, leading from the keyboard. Artist profiles i f i When I was 14, the film Soylent Green was released, a sci- fi thriller about a dystopian future of worldwide pollution, ying oceans, depleted resources, and rampant starvation. The story was set in the year 2022. The movie h s faded from memory, but one scene left a profound impression. An aged researcher, unable to go on, has chosen assisted suicide t a gover ment clinic. To ease his last m ments of life, he is shown videos of a world that no longer exist : flowers a d savannahs, flocks nd herds, unpolluted skies and waters, all set to a soundtrack of classical music by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Grieg. Thi scene captured my imagination in a terrifying way. The impact inc ea d when I lat learned that the actor playing the esear her, Edwar G. Robinson, was termin lly ill at the time it was filmed. Fast forward to th pandemic. Aft r more than two decades of constant touring, usually to urban cultural centers, performances abruptly ceased, and I suddenly found myself at hom . I sought comfort in long walks outside near my house. I neede t is time outdoors to mai tain my emotional equilib ium, and I was reminded that nature would always be my touchstone. At the same time, the news ab ut climate c ange grew more alarming: th extinction of anim ls we took for granted when we were children, t e knowledge that white rhinos h d isappeared fr m the wild, and daily reports of heat, fires, and flooding. I realized that the crisis we had been warned of for so long had arrived. I thought of the great legacy of song literature that I love, hen Romantic-era poets and c mposers r veled in imagery of nature, finding reflections of huma experience in th environ e t. I decided to recor some of this music, and to juxtap se these classics with the voices of living composers, ddressing our current, troubled relationship with the atural world. The result, in collaboration with my friend Yannick Nézet- Séguin, was the album Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene . When it received the 2023 Grammy Award for Best lassic l Solo Vocal Album, I was thrilled, and I had the idea to tour music addressing thi theme of nature as both our inspiration and our victim. I was i credibly fortunate to connect with the imaginative, dedicated leadership at the Nation l Geographic Society, the global non-profit c mmitted to exploring, illumin ting, and protecting the wond r of our world. It has been so exciting t work with this universally respected, l ndmark institution. I m deeply grateful f r the help of President and Chief Op rating Officer Michael Ulica, Chief Executive Officer Jill Tiefenthaler, and Producer/Editor Sam Deleon, whose expertise and vision have be n instrumental in creating the video you will see in the first half of tonight’s program. Thankfully, the stunning natural worl depicted in this film still exists, u like that movie scene so upsetting to my y unger self. In blending these beautiful images with music, my ho e is, in som small way, to rekindle your appreci tion of nature, a encourage any efforts you can m ke to protect the planet we share. Sincerely, Renée Fle ing no e fr m Renée Fleming