Marvelous Maestri of the 2023/24 Season

From bubbling romantic comedies to dark and brooding melodramas, Lyric's 2023/24 Season has something for everyone. At the helm of these diverse titles, we have a lineup of exciting conductors keeping things in perfect tune. Meet these noteworthy musicians and get ready for a season of unforgettable memories, beginning September 23.

Enrique Mazzola made an instant impression on Chicago audiences in his company debut with Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in the 2016/17 Season. As Lyric's Music Director — just the third in the company's history — he will lead productions of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Terence Blanchard's Champion, Verdi's Aida, and the Mozart Requiem. Known in Chicago for his expertise with bel canto operas and early Verdi, the 2023/24 Season offers a series of "firsts" for our beloved Maestro. He opens the season with his first Wagner opera at Lyric, his first contemporary opera at Lyric, and his first ever Aida, which also marks the 100th opera title in his repertoire. Mazzola is Principal Guest Conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and was named the Bregenz Festival's first Conductor in Residence in 2022. He previously served as Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestre National d'Île de France from 2012 to 2019 — a company known for producing contemporary works.

Bringing Donizetti's delightful romance to Chicago for the first time in more than 50 years, Italian conductor Speranza Scappucci makes her Lyric debut in The Daughter of the Regiment. Maestro Scappucci is a graduate of the Julliard School and the Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome. She is a regular at major opera houses around the world from The Metropolitan Opera and LA Opera, to La Scala, Vienna Staatsoper, and more. She served as music director for the Royal Opéra de Wallonie in Liège, Belgium from 2017 to 2022 and was recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor at Royal Opera House Covent Garden. When she takes up the mantle in the 2025/26 Season, she will be the first person to hold the title since 1997 and the first woman to ever hold the prestigious title.

Making both his company and American operatic debut in Janáček's Jenůfa is Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša. One of today's most exciting conductors, he has been Chief Conductor and music director of the renowned Bamberg Symphony since 2016 and will step into the role of Music Director of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden in 2025, becoming the company's seventh music director. He is also currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Hrůša was named Conductor of the Year by the 2023 OPUS KLASSIK awards and won the 2023 International Classical Music Award for Symphonic Music for his recording of Hans Rott: Symphony No.1 (available to stream on Spotify). The Grammy Award Nominee has been seen on concert and operatic stages around the world from Glyndebourne to the Vienna Philharmonic. Chicago audiences most recently saw him conduct Mahler's majestic Ninth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Born into a musical family in Taipai, Taiwan, Yi-Chen Lin was rasied in the Austrian capital of Vienna after moving there at the age of 8. The exciting conductor makes her Lyric and US debut this spring in Rossini's frothy Cinderella. An accomplished violinist and pianist, Lin made her operatic conducting debut in August 2011, with another Rossini title — Il viaggio a Reims — at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy. In October 2020, Maestro Lin was appointed Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin after successfully opening the season with an open-air production of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek, becoming the second female conductor with a permanent position in Berlin and the company's first.

Don't miss your chance to experience these marvelous Maestri on the podium in Lyric's 2023/24 Season. Individual tickets and packages are now available online, over the phone, and in-person at the box office.