Lyric Opera of Chicago's Anthony Freud Discusses Vision

Anthony Freud, 55, became general director in October 2011. In addition to directing the company's artistic and business operations, he has begun an in-depth strategic planning process with the Board of Directors, conceived of and launched the Lyric Unlimited initiative, and is forging important new relationships with a variety of other cultural organizations. Freud is the fourth general director in Lyric's 58-year history. Carol Fox, the company's founding general director (1954-80), was succeeded by Ardis Krainik (1981-97), who in turn was succeeded by William Mason (1997-2011). Mason is Lyric's first general director emeritus.

In an interview, Freud says, "Arts organizations the world over went through a period of existing in hermetically sealed bubbles. We felt we were doing a good job ... and if it ain't broke, why fix it? Those assumptions gradually proved less and less reliable, to the point where they became almost irrelevant."

He discusses his vision and says, "The days when community engagement was thought of as, 'Here is La Boheme, come and see it, you should enjoy it' ... that's what I call colonization rather than collaboration. I've been really clear with our board that the justification for investing in Lyric Unlimited is NOT to build our subscriber base. If we wanted to invest half a million dollars to sell more full-price tickets, we wouldn't do projects in economically deprived areas."

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Freud has been made an honorary fellow of Cardiff University (2004) an honorary fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (2005), and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), in recognition of his services to music, by Queen Elizabeth II in her 80th Birthday Honors (2006). From 2004-05 Freud was the trustee representing both Wales and the performing arts for the U.K.'s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), a $500 million national endowment promoting talent and creativity.

Freud was born and raised in London. His parents, both native Hungarians, came to England as war refugees - his father in 1939 and his mother as a survivor of Auschwitz. He attended his first opera at age four, became a regular operagoer in his teens, and has said that by the time he was 14 he knew he wanted to run an opera company. Freud graduated with honors with a law degree from the University of London King's College in 1978 and qualified as an attorney in 1979, but chose instead to follow his passion for opera.

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