DOWNTOWN — The Lyric Opera of Chicago simply introduced its 2025-26 season, and its jam-packed schedule options two new world premieres by two pioneering Chicago artists: a reimagining of The Smashing Pumpkins’ most acclaimed album by frontman Billy Corgan and a familial Nice Migration story by Chicago’s first poet laureate, avery r. younger.
Amongst greater than a dozen orchestral and opera exhibits scheduled from October 2025 by way of April 2026, the Lyric’s new season additionally options two Lyric premieres, three new-to-Chicago productions, an enlargement of its sold-out Film Nights sequence and a solo recital by worldwide opera star Renée Fleming.
The season kicks off with a gap gala 7 p.m. Oct. 10, adopted by an Oct. 11-26 run of the Lyric’s premiere of “Medea,” Luigi Cherubini’s opera impressed by Euripides’ historical Greek tragedy. Performed by Enrique Mazzola and directed by Sir David McVicar, this iteration stars Berwyn native and “hometown diva” Sondra Radvanovsky, for whom this manufacturing was created, per the Lyric.
October will even function two Film Nights after a sold-out premiere of “Singin’ within the Rain” final month. The orchestra will carry out the scores of “Coco” and “Mary Poppins” reside on stage whereas the films play on an enormous display above them. The primary movie will play Oct. 16 and 18, and the second will run April 10-11, 2026.
Different performances embody a double invoice of traditional Italian verismo one-act operas, Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana” and “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo; Carl Orff’s dramatic cantata “Carmina Burana”; and “Salome,” Richard Strauss’ opera of obsession and depravity. There’s additionally Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz’s Spanish-language opera “El último sueño de Frida y Diego” and rather more.
Whereas the Lyric marks its 71st birthday this 12 months, The Smashing Pumpkins are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the decade-defining document “Mellon Collie and The Infinite Unhappiness” — the band’s first double album.
The album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and offered 10 million copies, was born out of Chicago’s different music scene. Now, for the primary time, Chicago-area native Corgan is reimagining his magnum opus, mixing opera, rock and efficiency artwork in “A Evening of Mellon Collie and Infinite Unhappiness.”
“I’ve been coming [to the Lyric] for 20 years and, as anyone would know, there’s oftentimes such a large hole between the rock world and the great world right here,” Corgan stated at a press convention on the Lyric on Tuesday. “I really need this work to play inside the confines right here of the Lyric. This isn’t a rock-goes-opera or opera-goes-rock. That is actually to rejoice the compositional side of the work.”
The present’s goal is to each “amplify the legend of the unique album and increase the definition and intention of opera,” in line with the Lyric. The album already incorporates a free narrative, following “an idealized 24 hours within the day of life,” however the opera will swap up the music order and flesh out a thematic narrative, Corgan stated Tuesday.
The Lyric is an ideal residence for this piece as a result of the album was “recorded actually a mile away from the place we sit in the present day,” Corgan stated.
“We [the band] would oftentimes work all day at what was once Chicago Recording Firm simply down the road right here, and we’d drive down the lake,” he stated, reminiscing in regards to the Pumpkins’ launch to stardom.
The band confronted naysayers who doubted their potential success due to their Chicago roots and pushed them to maneuver to Los Angeles or New York, Corgan stated. The band “resisted that temptation,” even when “it wasn’t all the time the best path to chart,” he stated.
“All of us have these tales the place now we have to, in some unspecified time in the future, journey and go into a special place and produce who we’re. And I’ve all the time tried to carry Chicago with me wherever I’ve gone. So that is actually a seminal Chicago work,” he stated. “There’s a localized side of this work that I feel will actually resonate, as a result of it truly is. We got here from nothing, and we acquired to be one thing.”
The present options commissioned preparations and orchestrations by Corgan and conductor James Lowe, plus costumes from Home of Gilles and Chloé
Mendel Corgan, who can be Corgan’s spouse.
The present runs for seven nights between Nov. 21-30. Tickets go on sale to the general public 10 a.m. April 11 on the Lyric’s web site. Lyric subscribers have entry to tickets now as a part of their subscription bundle.
The Lyric will conclude its season with one other historic efficiency by Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. younger, who writes and stars in “safronia.” Described as an Afro-surrealist opera, “safronia” is a narrative in regards to the Nice Migration “advised by way of the eyes of a household coming back from the northern U.S. to their southern hometown to reckon with the ghosts of their previous,” in line with the Lyric.
The title shouts out each Nina Simone and younger’s grandmother, younger stated on the Lyric on Tuesday.
“Numerous what we all know of the Nice Migration is type of a monolith, however there’s so many various meanings to folks,” younger stated. “That is my story, and there’s loads of historical past. There’s loads of future to it, too.”
Directed by Timothy Douglas for his Lyric debut, the immersive present “marries folklore, poetry and historical past with blues, funk and soul.”
“Folks have this concept of what opera and classical music is meant to be like,” younger stated. “It’s actually a manner for folks to inform a narrative to different folks by way of music. And there shouldn’t be some degree of permission to have the ability to entry that specific story. When phrases and music mix in opera, their powers tackle even better resonance and which means.”
Right here’s the total schedule for the Lyric’s 2025-26 season:
- Oct. 10: Lyric Opening Live performance & Gala
- Oct. 11-26: “Medea”
- Oct. 16 and 18: Film Nights at Lyric
- Nov. 1-23: “Cavalleria rusticana” and “Pagliacci”
- Nov. 14-18: “Carmina Burana”
- Nov. 21-30: “A Evening of Mellon Collie and Infinite Unhappiness”
- Jan. 25-Feb. 14, 2026: “Salome”
- Feb. 1-15, 2026: “Così fan tutte”
- Feb. 5, 2026: Renée Fleming in Recital, “Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene”
- March 14-April 12, 2026: “Madama Butterfly”
- March 21-April 4, 2026: “El último sueño de Frida y Diego”
- April 10-11, 2026: Film Nights at Lyric
- April 17-18, 2026: “safronia”
The Lyric will even host year-round applications by way of the brand new season, together with its free annual live performance carried out by Mazzola in Pritzker Pavilion, Sunday within the Park with Lyric, on Sept. 7; Ryan Opera Middle Remaining Auditions, representing greater than 20 rising artists auditioning for a spot within the ensemble, on Sept. 14; Discover Your Lyric, an all-ages household occasion, on April 18, 2026; and its Opera within the Neighborhoods program, which brings classical artwork to greater than 5,000 college students and households citywide by way of college and public performances.
You possibly can browse the Lyric’s upcoming season and discover extra info on its web site.
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