Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 6 - Carmina Burana

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 12 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. MICHAEL BLACK CHORUS DIRECTOR The Australian chorus director joined Lyric full time in the 2012/13 Season, after having served as interim director the season before. He was named Head of Music at Lyric, a new position, in the 2023/24 Season. Black was Chorus Director at Opera Australia in Sydney from 2001 to 2013, and has worked in this capacity for such distinguished organizations as the Edinburgh International Festival and Opera Holland Park (London), and, in Australia, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Choir, Motet Choir, the Cantillation chamber choir, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In Chicago, Black became the first chorus director to work with the choruses of Lyric, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Grant Park Music Festival, where he served for six seasons, including preparation of The Damnation of Faust chorus and Haydn’s Creation . Last summer, he worked with the Young Artists at Opera Australia and the apprentice singers at the Santa Fe Opera, and he has lectured or given masterclasses at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Black has served as chorus director for close to 140 different operas on four continents, and his work has been recorded and/or aired on ABC, BBC, PBS, for many HD productions in movie theaters, and on television. Michael Black is supported by the Howard A.Stotler Chorus Director Endowed Chair. JOSEPHINE LEE CHILDREN’S CHORUS DIRECTOR Previously at Lyric: 16 productions since 2000/01, most recently La Bohème (2024/25) and Proximity (2022/23). Lee is President of Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir), a nonprofit organization that empowers nearly 4,000 diverse youth annually to find their voice and celebrate their common humanity through the power of music. Her efforts have established Uniting Voices Chicago as one of the city’s premier civic and cultural institutions, and its ensembles regularly join Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, among other ensembles. Lee has led Uniting Voices Chicago singers in performances of Carmina Burana with Choral Arts Society at the Kennedy Center; recordings of James Lee III’s Pitch In with Pacifica Quartet and Stacy Garrop’s Terra Nostra with Cedille Records; with Colombian pop star Karol G on Saturday Night Live and at Lollapalooza (2023); and on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (2021); PBS Great Performances national broadcast of Bernstein’s Mass with Ravinia Festival (2020); with Bobby McFerrin & The SpiritYouAll Band at Ravinia Festival (2019); and recordings of Chance the Rapper’s debut studio album The Big Day (2019) and Grammy Award-winning Coloring Book (2016); and performed with numerous renowned artists including Yo Yo Ma, Luciano Pavarotti, Solange, Al Green, Eddie Vedder, Wyclef Jean, Buddy Guy, the Eagles, Andrea Bocelli, and more. Lee received an Emmy award for Songs on the Road to Freedom (2008) and was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Lee has conducted the National Philharmonic at Strathmore, Choral Arts Symphonic Chorus and Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, Chicago Sinfonietta, Oregon Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, Sphinx Virtuosi, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra.