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'Bel Canto' makes world opera premiere at Lyric

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's world premiere run of "Bel Canto" will inevitably attract members of the global media and heads of international opera companies. Yet the Lyric is also making an effort to welcome local book groups whose members are curious to see how Ann Patchett's best-selling 2001 novel "Bel Canto" has been transformed into an opera.

"We all liked the novel and we don't always agree on all of them," said Libertyville resident and opera fan Sandra Petron, who nudged members of her club "Whine and Books" to get tickets.

Judith John of North Barrington said she started phoning the Lyric to secure "Bel Canto" tickets for her fellow Tower Lakes Book Club members long before they went on sale.

"I'm sure the Lyric had the idea that book groups would do this," said John, pleased that her group received a book club discount for their 12-ticket purchase to the Jan. 8 matinee.

Like Lyric creative consultant and soprano Renée Fleming, who helped curate the creation of "Bel Canto," John said she and her book group friends all agreed that Patchett's novel "is ideal opera material from all aspects."

"Bel Canto" (an Italian opera term literally translated as "Beautiful Singing") was inspired by a real-life hostage crisis that began in late 1996 when mostly teenage members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took over the Japanese Embassy for four months in Lima, Peru. Patchett imagines a similar situation in an unspecified South American country for her novel, exploring the fraught situations and unlikely alliances that entangle both the terrorists and their hostages, which include a Japanese business tycoon named Katsumi Hosokawa (Jeongcheol Cha), his translator (Andrew Stenson) and a glamorous American opera soprano named Roxane Coss (Danielle de Niese).

Fleming hand-picked Peruvian composer Jimmy López and Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban-American librettist Nilo Cruz ("Anna in the Tropics") for the commissioning of "Bel Canto," though the production is their first attempt at writing opera. Lyric general director Anthony Freud brought aboard American director Kevin Newbury because of his track record of staging new operas such as "Doubt," "Oscar" and "The Manchurian Candidate." Newbury has been attached to "Bel Canto" for the past three years.

"The entire experience has been one of the best of my life both personally and professionally," Newbury said. "It's a really challenging, rich piece and it is pushing us in really exciting directions and making us ask questions of the work that we do."

One notable challenge: López's score is sung in nine different languages, with projected English translations, to reflect the international dignitaries and guests who have been taken hostage. And though "Bel Canto" is physically set within a vice presidential mansion created by set designer David Korins, Newbury said the opera occasionally traverses through time and space with fantasy sequences that are realized in part by projection designer Greg Emetaz and lighting designer Duane Schuler.

"It is so action-packed and so moving. And it really feels at times like a film," said Newbury when asked if "Bel Canto" would be a good choice for people attending their first opera. "But it also has a huge orchestra, a huge cast and a big sound that I think will satisfy the most ardent of opera lovers."

"Bel Canto" was not co-commissioned with other opera companies, so there is much hope that it will be a success in Chicago and staged elsewhere in the future.

"It's an unbelievably powerful piece of theater," Newbury said. "And with everything that's been happening in the news right now, unfortunately the piece is much more timely than any of us would like it to be."

Petron finds some 19th-century opera plots to be contrived, but since "Bel Canto" is inspired by recent history, she thinks it will feel much more relevant to her and her fellow book club members.

"I hope it will seem more real and more tragic," she said.

Terrorists take hostages in a South American mansion in “Bel Canto” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The world premiere opera based upon Ann Patchett's 2001 novel plays seven performances only. COURTESY OF ANDREW CIOFFI/LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO
“Bel Canto” brings together composer Jimmy Lopez, left, director Kevin Newbury, Lyric Opera of Chicago music director/conductor Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric general director Anthony Freud, soprano Danielle de Niese, librettist Nilo Cruz, and Lyric creative consultant and “Bel Canto” curator Renée Fleming. Courtesy of Todd Rosenberg Photography
“Bel Canto” librettist Nilo Cruz, left, conductor Sir Andrew Davis, composer Jimmy Lopez and director Kevin Newbury pose backstage at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Courtesy of Todd Rosenberg Photography, 2013
Australian-American soprano Danielle de Niese stars as the glamorous opera singer Roxane Coss in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's world premiere of “Bel Canto.” Courtesy of Decca

“Bel Canto”

Location: Lyric Opera of Chicago at Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, (312) 827-5600 or

lyricopera.org

Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 7, 10 and 12, Jan. 5 and 13 and 2 p.m. Jan. 8 and 17

Parking: Area pay garages and limited metered street parking

Tickets: $20-$349

Other: Sung in English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Latin and Quechua with projected English translations. Book club receptions before performances on Dec. 10 and Jan. 5

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