Composer Jake Heggie and playwright-librettist Terrence McNally were asked to create a light and celebratory new opera for the millennium. Instead, inspiration led them to adapt the best-selling memoir Dead Man Walking, resulting in a groundbreaking opera that has touched and moved countless audiences around the world.
Mozart and Da Ponte called Don Giovanni a dramma giocoso (“humorous drama”). Although it opens with murder and concludes with Giovanni going to hell, in between it’s what we know today as “black comedy.” It’s funny and yet not funny; there are extreme tonal shifts between broad comedy, clever wit, and very disturbing behavior on everyone’s part, while at its most serious, the opera delves deeply into human nature.
Sondra Radvanovsky sings many of the most challenging roles ever written for a soprano. Three of those roles – Donizetti’s Anne Boleyn, Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots), and Queen Elizabeth I – have been huge successes for her onstage. Now at Lyric she'll perform the finales of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Roberto Devereux in The Three Queens a uniquely exciting presentation of these scenes in three semi-staged performances December 1-7.
Lyric’s children’s opera, Earth to Kenzie, premieres its family performances this weekend at the Vittum Theater — and we can guarantee that it is a must-see for families this fall.
Mark your calendars! Lyric is thrilled to participate in #GivingTuesday again this year and we hope you’ll choose to participate too.
Widely recognized as one of today’s foremost interpreters and champions of bel canto opera and a leading specialist in French repertoire and early Verdi, the eminent Italian maestro is in high demand worldwide as both an operatic and symphonic conductor.
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