Lyric Opera announces upcoming season
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2026-2027 season includes the Lyric premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera “Omar” by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, a concert version of Jules Massenet’s rarely performed “Hérodiade” and the long-awaited resumption of Lyric’s summer musical.
Music director Enrique Mazzola conducts five works, among them the season-opener “Don Giovanni” (Oct. 10-Nov. 1), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s take on the Don Juan legend in which a womanizer gets his due. The production also marks the Lyric return of director Robert Falls, whose revival of “Amadeus” for Steppenwolf Theatre was among 2025’s highlights.
“Opening the season with ‘Don Giovanni’ is deeply meaningful to me,” said Mazzola in a prepared statement. “It is one of those operas that has the entire world of opera inside it: comedy, drama, philosophy, and singular musical architecture.”
“Omar,” an opera inspired by the diaries of 19th-century Islamic scholar Omar ibn Said, whose score combines hymns, spirituals and bluegrass music, plays Oct. 23-28.
Gaetano Donizetti’s comedy “Don Pasquale,” about a young man and his fiancee duping his miserly uncle to gain an inheritance, plays Nov. 12-27. That’s followed by a concert version of Jules Massenet’s rarely performed “Hérodiade” (Feb. 23-28, 2027), inspired by the tale of Salome.
Next up is “Ariadne auf Naxos” (March 11-26, 2027), Richard Strauss’ “opera-within-an-opera” examining the conflict between high and low art revealed when a serious opera company and a comedy troupe are forced to perform together.
Yaritza Véliz makes her Lyric debut as the doomed courtesan Violetta Valéry in Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” (March 24-April 25, 2027), about the ill-fated affair between Violetta and her devoted but naive lover Alfredo, whose father tries to force them apart.
The penultimate production is Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 Appalachian-inspired “Susannah” (April 11-23, 2027), an opera not seen on the Lyric stage since 2002. The story centers on an innocent young woman living in a small town in Tennessee who’s falsely accused of impropriety and shunned by her neighbors.
The season concludes with Frank Loesser’s glorious tuner “Guys and Dolls” (June 4-20, 2027), based on Damon Runyon’s short stories about a group of New York City ne’er-do-wells and gamblers and the do-gooders who try to save their souls.
The season also includes a salute to Richard Wagner’s music (Nov. 20 and 22); performances of Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation” (Jan. 22 and 23, 2027); and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, Lyric’s newly named artistic adviser, and tenor SeokJong Baek in concert on April 30 and May 2, 2027.
The family-friendly Movie Nights at the Lyric returns next season with “Encanto in Concert Live to Film” on Nov. 28 and 29, and “Amadeus Live” on Jan. 15 and 16, 2027.
Performances take place at 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago. Season subscriptions are available. Individual tickets start at $47 for most performances. See lyricopera.org.