MEDEA, SALOME and More Set for Lyric Opera of Chicago 2025/26 Season

Lyric Opera of Chicago has revealed the company’s 2025/26 Season, its first complete season under the leadership of new General Director, President & CEO John Mangum. A rich mix of traditional operas and other live performances anchored by the incomparable Lyric Opera Orchestra and Lyric Opera Chorus, the season includes two world premieres, two Lyric premieres, three new-to-Chicago productions, an expansion of the sold-out Movie Nights at Lyric series, a solo recital by one of opera’s most legendary stars, and performances by some of the biggest names in musical theater. Lyric also deepens its mission to be the cultural hub for live performance in Chicago by commissioning and producing the work of two iconic Chicago pioneers: alternative rocker Billy Corgan, who presents world-premiere concerts reimagining his era-defining album with The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, for the operatic stage to celebrate its 30th anniversary; and Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, who writes and stars in the world-premiere musical work safronia.

The company’s 71st anniversary season opens on Friday, October 10, 2025, with the Lyric Opening Concert & Gala. Continuing the event’s tradition ushering in the start of Chicago’s new cultural season, this special concert shines a spotlight on some of Broadway’s most beloved talents and showcases a different side of the Lyric Opera Orchestra's vast musical expertise. More information will be announced soon.

The opera season continues the next evening with the Lyric premiere of Cherubini’s tragedy of infidelity and vengeance, Medea, October 11–26, 2025. Conducted by Maestro Mazzola and presented in the Lyric coproduction directed by Sir David McVicar, Medea stars Chicago’s hometown diva Sondra Radvanovsky, for whom this production was created, in the title role. Performances also feature returning Lyric favorites Matthew Polenzani as Giasone, Zoie Reams as Neris, and rising star Elena Villalón in her Lyric debut as Glauce.

Following its sold-out, one-night-only premiere with Singin’ in the Rain earlier in the current season, the Movie Nights at Lyric series expands to include two performances of two beloved films, both steeped in the musical theater tradition, and each powered by the Lyric Opera Orchestra performing the score live on stage in harmony with the film shown on a huge screen above them. The first film is presented October 16 & 18, 2025, and the second film is presented on April 10 & 11, 2026; movie titles will be announced soon.

The season continues with a pair of Italian verismo one-act operas: Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana & Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, on stage November 1–23, 2025. Known together as Cav/Pag, opera’s most thrilling double bill is conducted by Maestro Mazzola and presented in director Elijah Moshinsky’s Lyric production by revival director Peter McClintock. Cavalleria rusticana stars Yulia Matochkina as Santuzza and SeokJong Baek as Turiddu in their Lyric debuts alongside Lyric favorite Quinn Kelsey as Alfio. Kelsey also appears as Tonio in Pagliacci together with returning favorites Russell Thomas as Canio and Gabriella Reyes as Nedda.

November also brings Orff’s blazing cantata Carmina Burana to the stage, for three performances only, November 14–18, 2025. Conducted by Maestro Mazzola and with more than 225 artists on stage — the combined forces of the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Lyric Opera Chorus plus a large children’s chorus from Uniting Voices Chicago and soloists Jasmine Habersham, David Portillo, and Ian Rucker — Orff’s themes of the fickleness of fortune, the joys and sorrows of love, and the fleeting nature of existence are brought to vivid life.

A blockbuster month at Lyric continues with world-premiere performances celebrating the 30th anniversary of the decade-defining album by the legendary Chicago alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins: A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, for seven nights only, November 21–30, 2025. Iconic frontman Billy Corgan reimagines his magnum opus by marshaling all of Lyric’s technical and artistic forces — including the epic sound of the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus and special guest artists — for an immersively original sonic and visual experience that blurs the boundaries of opera, rock, and performance art. Featuring newly commissioned arrangements and orchestrations by Corgan and James Lowe, who also conducts, as well as costumes from House of Gilles by Gilles and Chloé Mendel Corgan, these historic performances promise to further magnify the legend of the original album and expand the definition and intention of opera.

"It is thrilling to collaborate with Lyric head John Mangum, my musical partner James Lowe, and all of the artists at Lyric in reimagining this very special and historic album, and to discover how Lyric’s full operatic treatment is helping me experience my own compositions in powerful new ways," says Billy Corgan. "Opera and rock both tell stories of heightened emotions, and I am excited for both fans of my music and traditional opera fans to hear some truly inspired work; for the balance here is to honor both traditions in a magisterial way."

Tickets for A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness go on sale to the general public on Friday, April 11 at 10:00 a.m. at lyricopera.org and are available to Lyric subscribers now, as part of a subscription package.

The winter brings a pair of operas that examine the romantic passions of women through startlingly different lenses. Salome, Richard Strauss’s explosive opera of obsession and depravity, returns to Lyric for the first time in nearly 20 years, January 25–February 14, 2026. Conductor Tomáš Netopil, the incoming Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Prague Symphony Orchestra, makes his Lyric debut leading a supersized Lyric Opera Orchestra through Strauss’s groundbreaking score. Sir David McVicar’s decadent and provocative production, revived by Julia Burbach, is set in 1940s fascist Italy and is presented in North America for the very first time. The demanding title role of Salome is sung by Elena Stikhina in her Lyric debut; returning stars Brandon Jovanovich and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner play her demented parents, Herod and Herodias; and Nicholas Brownlee makes his Lyric debut as the object of her deadly affection, Jochanaan.

In repertory with the dark and demanding Salome is Mozart’s lighthearted romantic comedy, Così fan tutte on stage February 1–15, 2026. Maestro Mazzola conducts Mozart’s sparkling score, and Michael Cavanagh’s new-to-Chicago production, set in a 1930s-era seaside country club, is revived by Roy Rallo. The opera — the second in Lyric’s exploration of the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy of operas, following the current season’s The Marriage of Figaro — stars Jacquelyn Stucker as Fiordiligi, Cecilia Molinari as Dorabella, and Anthony León as Ferrando, all in their Lyric debuts, along with Ian Rucker as Guglielmo, Ana María Martínez as Despina, and Rod Gilfry as Don Alfonso.

International superstar Renée Fleming makes her much-anticipated return to the Lyric Stage for one night only on Thursday, February 5, 2026, with a program based on her 2023 Grammy-winning album and performed with pianist Inon Barnatan. Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, created in partnership with the National Geographic Society, which designed the recital’s captivating video elements, blends classic Romantic-era works and contemporary selections in a program that captures the evolution of the human experience in nature.

The unforgettable music of Puccini returns to Lyric when Madama Butterfly takes the stage, March 14–April 12, 2026. Conducted by Domingo Hindoyan and presented in a beautiful new-to-Chicago production from Lyric’s own Matthew Ozawa, this critically acclaimed presentation reckons with the opera’s outdated stereotypes and challenges audiences to reconsider their point of view while respecting the opera’s beloved scenic and musical traditions. Karah Son, one of the leading Butterflys of our time, makes her Lyric debut in the title role; the opera also stars Evan LeRoy Johnson as Pinkerton and Nozomi Kato as Suzuki, both in their Lyric debuts. Ozawa’s striking new vision for the opera’s traditional Japanese setting is executed by an all-female and all-Japanese design team, bringing new dimensions to the age-old story.

Paired with the classic Madama Butterfly is an acclaimed contemporary Spanish-language opera in its Lyric premiere: El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), by composer Gabriela Lena Frank and the librettist Nilo Cruz (librettist for Lyric’s world premiere Bel Canto in the 2015/16 Season), March 21–April 4, 2026. Conductor Roberto Kalb and director Lorena Maza, reprising their roles from the work’s 2022 world premiere and both in their Lyric debuts, lead this colorful, surrealist production in which Frida and Diego’s art comes to life on stage, powered by Frank’s lush, evocative music inspired by Mexican folk music traditions. Daniela Mack stars as Frida, and Alfredo Daza makes his Lyric debut as Diego. Ana María Martínez returns for a second appearance in the season as Catrina, and the rising star countertenor Key’mon W. Murrah makes his Lyric debut as Leonardo.

Lyric concludes its opera season with another world premiere: safronia, an Afro-surrealist opera featuring music and libretto by Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, for two performances only, April 17 & 18, 2026. safronia is young’s moving story of the Great Migration, told through the eyes of a family returning from the northern U.S. to their southern hometown to reckon with the ghosts of their past. First conceived following young's galvanizing appearance in Lyric’s Twilight: Gods in the 2020/21 Season, safronia marries folklore, poetry, and history with gospel, blues, funk, and soul. These vibrant, immersive, concert-style performances are directed by visionary storyteller Timothy Douglas in his Lyric debut.

"safronia is a deeply personal story to me — it is my story, but it is also our story, and I am honored to tell our story in our city’s great temple of culture," says young. "When words and music combine in opera, their powers take on even greater resonance and meaning. I can’t wait for Chicago to meet safronia and to come along on her operatic journey."

Continuing Year-Round Programs at Lyric

The excitement of its current 50th anniversary season will continue as The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, Lyric’s world-class artist-development program, marks another season of excellence in the 2025/26 Season. Members of the Ryan Opera Center Ensemble will appear in a variety of onstage roles, and several notable alumni of the program — including Matthew Polenzani, Quinn Kelsey, Lauren Decker, Ryan Capozzo, and Ian Rucker (who is finishing his tenure in the Ensemble this season) — will return to Lyric next season. The Ryan Opera Center Final Auditions, at which more than 20 finalists representing the world’s finest emerging artists audition for a spot in the Ryan Opera Center’s 2026/27 Ensemble, will be held Sunday, September 14, 2025. Rising Stars in Concert, the program’s annual showcase of its current Ensemble, will be held on Saturday, April 25, 2026.

Ryan Opera Center artists and members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra come together to signal a new cultural season is ahead with one of the city’s most anticipated free events: Sunday in the Park with Lyric, an annual concert conducted by Maestro Mazzola in the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, will be held Sunday, September 7, 2025.

Lyric Unlimited, the company’s Learning & Civic Engagement division, is dedicated to education and community initiatives that connect Lyric to the city of Chicago through collaborative programming. One of Lyric Unlimited’s most popular events for Chicago families — Explore Your Lyric, a day of fun and adventure for all ages at the Lyric Opera House — is set for Saturday, April 18, 2026.

Lyric Unlimited’s Opera in the Neighborhoods program also returns in the 2025/26 Season with both school and public performances of a powerful opera for young audiences. Katie: The Strongest of the Strong — An opera for all — composed by Faye Chiao with a libretto by Anton Dudley, is inspired by the true story of Katie Sandwina, a circus strongwoman in the early 1900s who helped lead the women’s suffrage movement. Opera in the Neighborhoods performances reach more than 5,000 students and their families each season through Lyric’s longstanding annual tours that include both school-based and public performances.

Lyric also plans an expansion of its existing program of Student Dress Rehearsals in the 2025/26 Season. In the current season, more than 2,000 Chicago students will attend dress rehearsals of operas, and current goals are to double student participation at dress rehearsals in the next season.

"All year long — whether on the stage with our world-class performances, backstage with our renowned artist-training programs and topflight design shops, or out in the community in classrooms, parks, and other spaces around the city — Lyric is the cultural hub for all of Chicago," says Mangum. "We look forward to continuing to bring Chicago audiences together to see and hear universal stories told through the singular power of live music and the human voice."

Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2025/26 Season Schedule

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