05/28/16 – Bel Canto – 1PM

LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO

• Music by Jimmy López
• Libretto by Nilo Cruz
• Based on the novel by Ann Patchett
• In Spanish, English, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Latin and Quechua, with projected English titles
• front page photo credit: Todd Rosenberg

 

Ann Patchett’s best-selling novel Bel Canto took the literary world by storm — now, in a new work curated by Lyric’s creative consultant, Renée Fleming, this riveting story inspired by a real-life event becomes a powerful opera.

Superstar American diva Roxane Coss has flown to Peru to sing at the vice president’s home for a visiting Japanese mogul who is an opera buff. Dignitaries of every nationality are there — but an international crisis explodes when terrorists storm the mansion and take everyone hostage.

Isolated for months, unlikely alliances form between captors and captives as fear and anger mingle uneasily with desire and even love. Music is the one universal language — but can it draw forth the humanity that exists in us all?

An extraordinary international cast is led by Danielle de Niese, who caused a sensation as Lyric’s Cleopatra in 2007. Sir Andrew Davis teams up with Kevin Newbury (Anna Bolena) for this world premiere with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize winnerNilo Cruz and music by Jimmy López, a native of Peru and “one of the most dynamic young composers working today.” Chicago Sun-Times

 

Lyric Opera world premiere generously made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Helen and Sam Zell, Ethel and William Gofen, Ada and Whitney Addington, the Walter E. Heller Foundation, and Roberta L. and Robert J. Washlow, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts andPrince Charitable Trusts.

 

Starring

• 

  Roxane Coss

  Danielle de Niese

• 

  Carmen

  J’nai Bridges

• 

  Hosokawa

  Jeongcheol Cha

• 

  Gen

  Andrew Stenson

– See more at: http://www.lyricopera.org/belcanto/#sthash.XTcwawqe.dpuf