Lyric Opera announces premieres, collaboration with Billy Corgan for 2025-26 season
CHICAGO — The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2025-26 season will include five productions that first appeared elsewhere and one revival, all picked by the previous general director, Anthony Freud. Plus, the Lyric is commissioning and producing the work of two Chicago icons: alternative rocker Billy Corgan and Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young.
The current general director, John Mangum, arrived on Oct. 14 from the Houston Symphony after the retirement of Freud, who had led the Lyric for 13 years. Mangum plans on seven main stage operas in 2026-27, including three of his choosing.
Freud left in place two titles for 2027-28, the final season he partially programmed. Mangum is planning a 2029-30 season marking the 75th anniversary of the company and the 100th anniversary of the opera house.
Following an opening gala on Oct. 10, next season’s staged works start the following night with the company premiere of Cherubini’s “Medea” in the Italian version, the company announced Tuesday. Sondra Radvanovsky sings the title role in David McVicar’s staging, repeating her performance that opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2022-23 season.
“It’s expensive to originate a production on your own,” Mangum said. “The ‘Medea' is a great example. That’s a co-production that we invested in from the beginning and was always intended to come here. That really, I think, is the new model. The idea that the house can just do a production on its own is economically not really feasible these days.”
The number of performances will increase to 59 in 2025-26 from 47 this season. Next season includes three concerts (Nov. 14-18) of Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and seven (Nov. 21-30) by alternative rocker Billy Corgan focusing on the 30th anniversary of his recording with The Smashing Pumpkins, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.”
“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,” Billy Corgan said in a statement.
“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 the Infinite Sadness” go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Friday, April 11, at lyricopera.org/.
The Lyric has sold 72% of tickets this season prior to remaining productions of Puccini’s “La Bohème” and Missy Mazzoli’s “The Listeners” that open this month.
Elijah Moshinsky’s 2002 Lyric Opera productions of Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” and Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” open Nov. 1 and feature Yulia Matochkina and SeokJong Baek in their company debuts.
Elena Stikhina and Nicholas Brownlee make their company debuts on Jan. 25, 2026, in Strauss’ “Salome,” in a McVicar production first seen at London’s Royal Opera in 2008. Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” opens Feb. 1, 2026, in Michael Cavanagh’s 2021 staging from the San Francisco Opera that sets the action in a 1930s U.S. country club.
Renée Fleming returns to the Lyric stage on Feb. 5, 2026, performing in “Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene.”
Matthew Ozawa directs Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” starring Karah Son in her company debut, on March 14, 2026, in a staging first seen at the Cincinnati Opera in 2023. Gabriela Lena Frank’s “El último sueño de Frida y Diego” opens March 21, 2026, in the Lorena Maza staging from the 2022 world premiere at the San Diego Opera.
Lyric concludes its season April 17-18, 2026, with the world premiere of “safronia,” an Afro-surrealist opera featuring music and libretto by Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young.