Lyric Opera of Chicago Season 2008/2009 Lyric Opera of Chicago Season 2008/2009
NOW ON STAGE
Giacomo Puccini
MADAMA BUTTERFLY

98% Sold! Best availability: Jan. 15

Richard Wagner
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

Starring Deborah Voigt and Clifton Forbis
Opens January 27

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» Watch excerpts from Madama Butterfly
» View production photos from Madama Butterfly
» Podcast interviews with our stars

Opera Title

Giuseppe Verdi

"I have been too happy." – Violetta

La traviata — the wayward one — Paris's most sought-after courtesan; kept by society's most important men and living a life of empty pleasure. But then Violetta falls in love — real love.

September 29 – October 15
January 11 – 26

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Opera Title

Giacomo Puccini

Legendary Renata Scotto directs the world's most popular opera!

It will make you laugh, and it will break your heart — the true-to-life tale of struggling young artists living life to the fullest in Paris's Latin Quarter.

October 1 – November 23

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Opera Title

George Frideric Handel

When Julius Caesar met Cleopatra, sparks flew — and the rest is history!

It's 48 B.C., and things are hopping! Caesar has defeated his countryman Pompey for the job of Rome's supreme commander. Now he's out to conquer Egypt for the empire.

November 2 – December 1

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Opera Title

Richard Strauss

Epic Fairytale! Epic Cast!

The lovely Empress — part celestial being, part human — has a major problem. Her husband will be turned to stone and she'll be whisked back to the spirit realm unless she has a child — something she cannot do because she does not have a shadow. So it's off to the human world to get one.

November 16 – December 20

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Opera Title

Composed by John Adams
Libretto by Peter Sellars

"Musically mesmerizing." The New York Times

The Bomb. It changed our lives and our world forever. Hard to fathom a bigger — or more personal — subject. Director Peter Sellars takes us to Los Alamos, New Mexico. It's 1945. Scientists are working on a top-secret project for the U.S. government: testing the first atom bomb.

December 14 – January 19

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Opera Title

Giuseppe Verdi

"My favorite Verdi opera"
– Sir Andrew Davis

What happens when an old knight who still fancies himself a ladies' man sends identical love letters to two married women?

January 28 – February 23, 2008

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Opera Title

Gioachino Rossini

Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!

He's handsome, socially connected, and rich. Almaviva is the man of Rosina's dreams and he even wants to marry her! So what's the problem? Her crusty old guardian thinks he should be her husband! It's time to call in the reinforcements: Figaro!

February 16 – March 22, 2008

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Opera Title

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

From Russia with Love

Meet Eugene Onegin — a self-indulgent St. Petersburg playboy. He tarries with the sweet country girl Tatyana, then rebuffs her when she pours out her passion; he looks for sport with the fiancée of his best friend, and then kills him in a duel. Years pass...

March 1 – 30, 2008

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Opera Title

Jules Massenet

What a spectacular season-opener! Two megawatt stars—Natalie Dessay and Jonas Kaufmann—a stunning production, and music that intoxicates from the moment the curtain goes up!

September 27 – October 31, 2008

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Opera Title

Georges Bizet

From Carmen's composer—heavenly, exotic, perfumed music that transports the listener to ancient Ceylon.

Two fishermen swear to put friendship first by forgetting the alluring priestess with whom they both fell in love, and the alluring priestess swears to uphold her vow of chastity so she can protect the pearl divers from storms.

October 6 – November 4

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Opera Title

Alban Berg

Meet Lulu, opera's most dangerous heroine; instantly an object of obsessive sexual desire for every man who meets her—and seriously bad news for any man who gets involved.

November 7 – November 30

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Opera Title

George Gershwin, DuBose & Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin

"Summertime," "I Got Plenty o'Nuttin'," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"... iconic American songs from the greatest American opera of them all!

November 18 – December 19

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Opera Title

Giacomo Puccini

Cio-Cio-San—seduced and abandoned by naval officer B. F. Pinkerton, and now the mother of his child.

Day after day she watches the harbor hoping he'll return, and finally, he does.

December 13, 2008 – January 29, 2009

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Opera Title

Richard Wagner

"There are no bounds to the longing, the desire, the bliss, and the anguish of love. The world, power, fame, glory, honor, chivalry, loyalty, friendship...all are swept away. Only one thing is left alive...yearning, yearning, insatiable desire...."
Richard Wagner

That's how the composer himself described his grand, sweeping paean to ecstasy!

January 27 – February 28, 2009

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Opera Title

Pietro Mascagni & Ruggero Leoncavallo

It's double the passion and double the revenge in these two Italian shockers.

February 14 - March 27, 2009

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Opera Title

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Kidnapped by pirates and now prisoners in a pasha's palace!

That's the fate of Belmonte's beloved Konstanze and her comely maid, Blonde. But Belmonte is positive he can rescue the ladies from the seraglio (a.k.a. harem) if he can just outsmart Osmin, the famously formidable overseer.

March 2 – 28, 2009

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