COT Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya joins Oliver to preview Karol Szymanowski’s benchmark opera receiving it’s Chicago premiere this month.

“It feels like I’ve been carrying this world with me for a long time.”

In this celebratory season, audiences will hear two twentieth-century operas and three world premieres across COT’s full slate of mainstage and special programming.

Though there is a long way still to go, today’s stages are richer because these pioneering conductors are on them.

WFMT talks with the outspoken mezzo-soprano about what it means to take on the role of Carmen, why she’s excited to open the COT season, and how modern-day audiences and artists can best confront the more outdated aspects of Carmen and other beloved operas.

From Carmen to Claus, learn what is in store for the next season of Chicago Opera Theater.

“The reach is exponentially larger.”

2020 was a year of great loss for all; the music world was no exception. As we reflect on the year gone by, WFMT salutes the contributions of artists and friends who died this past year.

Chicago Opera Theater has revised its 2020-21 season with digital livestreams and additional performances.

A collaborative performance with Chicago Opera Theater, the Refugee Orchestra Project, and conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya seeks to express the importance of refugee populations in American music and around the world.

General director Ashley Magnus maintains that even in troubled times, the company is “moving forward with the belief that opera truly is a living, resilient art form.”

With a story that highlights how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, Chicago Opera Theater presents the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom Ride, which centers on a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle.

Two operatic opus ones will have their Chicago premieres this weekend, and they both command a chorus of well over 100. Chicago Opera Theater opens its 2019-20 season with a double bill: Joby Talbot’s Everest and Rachmaninoff’s Aleko.

In the early 1990s, the famed composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti came to Chicago as the guest for a black-tie event for Chicago Opera Theater. Larry Johnson recounts a rare opportunity to spend time with a world-famous musician and composer.

Moby-Dick is a Great American Novel, no doubt. But that fact doesn’t make Herman Melville’s 600+ page opus any less intimidating.

General director Ashley Magnus exclaims that “to ensure that opera stays relevant as a living art form, we must bring contemporary voices, as well as works of international prominence never before seen in Chicago to the stage.”

“Right now, we’re in a golden era of American opera”

Chicago Opera Theater concludes its 2017/18 season with a Donizetti double bill presenting two Chicago premieres: “Il Pigmalione” and “Rita.”

Chicago Opera Theater today announced its 2018/19 season composed of three new-to-Chicago works, continuing the company’s commitment to presenting new and rarely performed operas.

COT presents a world-premiere opera, Elizabeth Cree, by the team of composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell, who together created the Pulitzer-winning opera Silent Night.

When conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya was recently named the new music director of Chicago Opera Theater, she became the only woman to hold that title with a major American opera company. Get to know Yankovskaya in this video interview.

Whether you’re new to opera or consider yourself a connoisseur, there’s something for everyone to enjoy this fall in Chicago. Here are four operas we are excited to see in the coming months.

Anyone who’s ever tried to sing or play an instrument knows that hard work and practice are essential to make a performance successful. But performing music from memory presents another challenge. The repetitions Glass uses make memorizing his music particularly difficult.

Chicago Opera Theater announced its 2017-18 season: three operas, including a world-premiere co-production with Opera Philadelphia, to be staged at the newly-renovated Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building.

You may know Stewart Copeland as a founding member of the band the Police, but did you know he’s also composed works for orchestra, ballets, and even operas? His music has also been featured in countless films and even video games. With such an incredibly diverse output, what has inspired this chart-topping composer and musician to create new operas? In …