Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 4 - Cavalleria

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 24 DANIEL LUIS ESPINAL BEPPE Previously at Lyric: Don Curzio/ Le nozze di Figaro and Jacquino/ Fidelio (both 2024/25). A second-year Ryan Opera Center member, the Cuban-Dominican tenor from Sarasota was a national winner of the 2024 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, received a 2025 Sara Tucker Study Grant, and was in residence at the 2025 Aix-en-Provence Festival Académie and Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute. This season at Lyric Espinal will also appear in Salom e and El último sueño de Frida y Diego . A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Espinal continued his studies at Yale University, where he received a Master of Musical Arts degree. His roles there included Tom Rakewell/ The Rake’s Progress , Rinuccio/ Gianni Schicchi , and Male Chorus/ The Rape of Lucretia . The tenor has previously participated in San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program for two summers, where he sang the Duke/ Rigoletto , David/ Die Meistersinger , and Arcadio/ Florencia en el Amazonas . His repertoire also includes Alfredo/ La traviata and Tamino/ Die Zauberflöte . Daniel Luis Espinal is sponsored by Lead Sponsor the J.Thomas Hurvis Endowment, in loving memory of Dick Kiphart and cosponsors Fred & Phoebe Boelter and Margo & Michael Oberman & Family. UNITING VOICES CHICAGO Previously at Lyric: 16 productions since 2000/01, most recently Carmen and Proximity (both 2022/23). Uniting Voices Chicago (Josephine Lee, president and artistic director), formerly Chicago Children’s Choir, is the nation’s preeminent youth choral organization, serving 5,200 students across the city of Chicago. Founded in Hyde Park in direct response to the Civil Rights Movement in 1956, Uniting Voices has grown from one choir into a vast network of in-school and after-school programs driven by one mission: to inspire and change lives through music. Uniting Voices has impacted the lives of more than 100,000 diverse youth throughout its 68-year history. Since its founding, Uniting Voices has focused on building programs that reflect the racial and economic diversity of Chicago. Eighty percent of youth served are from low- moderate income homes, with 100 percent of nearly 4,000 students annually participating at a subsidized cost. High school seniors enrolled in Uniting Voices have a 100% graduation rate, becoming global ambassadors who carry on UVC’s core values in a wide array of professional fields. 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, and 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. ELIJAH MOSHINSKY ORIGINAL DIRECTOR Previously at Lyric: 12 productions since 1985, most recently Simon Boccanegra (2012/13) and Lohengrin (2010/11). The renowned Australian opera, theater, and television director had numerous successes around the world, including with The Metropolitan Opera ( The Queen of Spades , Ariadne auf Naxos , Luisa Miller , Nabucco ), Houston Grand Opera ( Béatrice et Bénédict , Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci ), and San Francisco Opera ( Simon Boccanegra ), and many other companies. Moshinsky, who died in 2021, made his debut at Lyric in the 1985/86 Season with Handel’s