Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 1 - Medea

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 30 Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, the Seagle Festival, Utah Festival Opera, and Annapolis Opera. Humbert was invited for the 2025 Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival and is a former participant in the artist-development programs at Palm Beach Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Concert appearances include Carnegie Hall (debut as baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem ) and the Erie Philharmonic. Recipient of a 2025 Luminarts Cultural Foundation Men’s Voice Fellowship and a 2024 American Opera Society of Chicago Scholarship Award, Humbert holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and a Master of Music degree from Boston Conservatory. Christopher Humbert, Jr. is sponsored by Lead Sponsor Patricia Frank and cosponsors Maria C.Green & Oswald G.Lewis,Mary Houston,in loving memory of James Houston, and the Bill & Orli Staley Foundation. ENRIQUE MAZZOLA CONDUCTOR Lyric’s Music Director — the third in the company’s history — is internationally renowned as an interpreter and champion of bel canto opera and as a specialist in French repertoire and the works of Verdi. Mazzola’s recently completed tenure as Principal Guest Conductor at Deutsche Oper Berlin included recordings of Dinorah and Herodiade and performances of Le prophète, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Werther, Falstaff, Vepres Siciliennes , and Les contes d’Hoffmann . He served as Conductor in Residence for the Bregenz Festival from 2021 to 2024, where he conducted a new production of Rigoletto and recorded DVDs of Rigoletto , Madama Butterfly, Die Freischütz, Ernani , and Mosè in Egitto . He served as Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestre National d’Île de France from 2012 to 2019, and in 2018 was named a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Mazzola made his debut at Lyric with Lucia di Lammermoor in 2016/17, and conducted Bellini’s I puritani in 2017/18. During 2019/20, he led Verdi’s Luisa Miller to launch the company’s Early Verdi Series and, in his first performances as Music Director, opened Lyric’s 2021/22 season with Sir David McVicar’s new production of Macbeth . An accomplished interpreter of contemporary music, Mazzola recently conducted Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s The Listeners (2024/25) and Terence Blanchard’s Champion (2022/23) at Lyric. He has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the major houses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Moscow, and Tokyo, as well as a historic Meyerbeer cycle with Deutsche Oper Berlin. Past major European festivals have included Glyndebourne (including DVD releases of Don Pasquale, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Poliuto ), Salzburg ( Orphée aux Enfers ), Pesaro (Rossini Opera Festival), Venice, Aix-en-Provence, and Bregenz, Symphonic highlights include the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Vienna Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Brussels Philharmonic. Mazzola was born in Barcelona, Spain, into a musical family, and grew up in Milan, where he studied violin and piano, earning diplomas in composition and orchestral conducting at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi of Milan. Enrique Mazzola is supported by the John D.and Alexandra C.Nichols Endowed Chair. DAVID McVICAR DIRECTOR & SET DESIGNER Previously at Lyric: Seven productions since 2001/02, most recently Macbeth (2021/22) and Elektra (2018/19). The renowned Scottish director’s productions are seen annually in major houses worldwide, with recent highlights including new productions of Adriana Lecouvreur, Roberto Devereux (both at the Metropolitan Opera, the latter a company premiere), Médée (Geneva’s Grand Théâtre), and I masnadieri (La Scala). Previously at Lyric, he directed Il trovatore (2018/19, 2014/15, 2006/07), Wozzeck (2015/16), and La clemenza di Tito (2013/14). McVicar has created nine new productions for the Royal Ballet & Opera and seven for the Met, where he recently directed a new Don Carlos. He has also directed at La Scala ( Les Troyens ), Opera Australia ( Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro ), the Vienna Staatsoper ( Tristan und Isolde, Falstaff ), English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Salzburg Festival, and the Mariinsky Theatre, and many other major companies. Among his awards is the 2011 Grand Prix de la Musique du Syndicat de la Critique. In 2012 he received a knighthood and was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres. DOEY LÜTHI COSTUME DESIGNER Lyric debut Highlights for the designer include Elektra (West End); Nobodaddy (Téac Damsa); Les Oiseaux, Die Vöge l, and El Amor Brujo (Opéra national du Rhin); Macbeth and Madama Butterfly (Oper Frankfurt); La Calisto (Teatro alla Scala); L’Italiana in Londra (Oper Frankfurt); Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, Det Kongelige Teater Copenhagen); Tamerlano (Oper Frankfurt); Greek Passion (Opera North); Tri Sestry (Ural Opera Ballet Theatre); Lost Highway (Oper Frankfurt); Surrogate Cities, The Love For Three Oranges, and The Tales of Hoffman (Wuppertaler Bühnen); The Flying Dutchman (Staatstheater Hannover); Shadowlands (Göteborgs Operans Danskompani); The Rake’s Progress (Staatstheater Braunschweig); Macbeth (Saarländisches Staatstheater); and Un ballo in mascher a and Peter Grimes (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe). She has designed costumes for Petrushka (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre and Sadler’s Wells London), Julius Caesar (English National Opera), Rian (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre), Ariadne auf Naxos (Opéra National de Bordeaux), Methusalem-Projekt (Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar), Phaeton and Sakontala (Saarländisches Staatstheater), La finta giardiniera (Theater an der Wien), Don Pasquale (Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar), Orfeo (Den Norske Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Opera North), Aida (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Theater Basel), Imeneo (Glimmerglass Opera), Carmen (Nationaltheater Mannheim), and Otello (Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin). Doey won the Premio Abbiati award for Best Costume Design in 2021 and Best Opera Production at the 2020 Golden Mask Awards ( Tri Sestry at Ural and P liuto ), Salzburg ( Orphée aux Enfers ), Pesar (Rossini Opera Festival), V nice, Aix-en-Prov nce, .