Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 10 - Renée Fleming

13 | Lyric Opera of Chicago All photos by Andrew Eccles 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