Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 7 - A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness

9 | Lyric Opera of Chicago doing here, this piece, was always nascent in that material. It certainly flourishes in this treatment. Is it still fair to say that this production is out of the box for Lyric? Is that intentional? I would love for Lyric to continue to expand as a place where all sorts of creative musical artists can see themselves and their work. Clearly, Billy sat in our theater, saw a performance, and said, I want to do that with my music. I want to do that as an artist. We want all sorts of musical artists to see that possibility — the possibility of their creativity being transferred to our stage. We’re also doing it this season with safronia , by Chicago’s poet laureate, avery r. young. He’s another artist who hadn’t worked in opera until this project, but who said, I can see my creativity thriving and finding its fullest expression at Lyric . That’s what I really hope people take away from this project — that opera is a much wider net than one might assume. There’s opportunity for creative expression in this art form that spans the boundaries, the false boundaries, between many different sorts of genres. Opera has always been a kind of hybrid, hasn’t it? Think of Mozart’s The Magic Flute . That has material inspired by folk music and popular song in it. And you can pick examples from throughout operatic history, where composers have broken down the boundaries between genres. Even La Bohème comes to mind. Act II very much occupies this liminal space between the elevated and the popular, with Musetta’s Waltz, and the different layers of the chorus. Even Wagner, whom many view as the pinnacle of the operatic art form, was influenced by the vernacular and by folk music, and that comes from the influence of Weber on his work. You think of Weber’s Der Freischütz . It has choruses and ensembles and songs that could be right out of folk music. I think it’s probably more prevalent in opera than we often think. This season, we have Madama Butterfly , where Puccini turned to Asian with a capital A sources, to quote folk material. He does this also in Turandot and in a completely different way in Fanciulla del West . There are examples all over opera. Coming attractions for 2026: Renee Fleming in recital, February 5; Mary Poppins in Concert Live to Film, April 10 and 11.