By Judy Carmack Bross
When we spoke via zoom on a rainy morning at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s new Music Director Enrique Mazzola showed us what he never travels without, an oversized leather-bound opera score and a sharp pencil.
9/13/19 4:49:49 AM — The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s next music Director Enrique Mazzola. © Todd Rosenberg Photography 2019 |
9/13/19 4:49:49 AM — The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s next music Director Enrique Mazzola. © Todd Rosenberg Photography 2019 |
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Not unlike his pre-COVID schedule, Mazzola has flown back and forth from England where he led London’s Philharmonic to Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris, often for the day, and always with his big black book. He even led a master class in Moscow. As musicians, there were more travel exemptions made by EU governments. “There is so much waiting at the gate, it is a good time to practice and I take out my pencil and study the score.”
He proudly pointed out that day that it was the score for Sir David McVicar’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth which he will be conducting at the Lyric Opera September 17 through October 9.
Macbeth, sketch by John Macfarlane
Mazzola is only the third Music Director for the Lyric, following the tenures of Sir Andrew Davis and the late Bruno Bartoletti.
5/9/19 2:33:58 PM — Chicago, IL nLyric Opera ChicagonPortraits of Sir Andrew Davis and Anthony Freundnn© Todd Rosenberg Photography 2019
“It is really the greatest honor of my life to follow two great conductors, Bartoletti and Maestro Davis. To be the Director of one of the world’s major music institutions and to be sharing the experiences of my predecessors is extraordinary.
“I want to know Chicago and its citizens. I love taking the bus, and getting to meet new people. I love walking around in Chicago learning the different neighborhoods. I want to know what it is like to be a Chicagoan. It is terrific to have been adopted by Chicago.”
9/13/19 4:22:22 AM — The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s General Director Anthony Freud and next music director Enrique Mazzola. nn. © Todd Rosenberg Photography 2019
Enrique Mazzola, Anthony Freud, and Sir Andrew Davis
Photo: Kyle Flubacker
When the Lyric was unable to present live performances at the opera house due to COVID, he collaborated with favorite Lyric artists, ensemble members of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, and members of the Lyric’s orchestra and chorus, emphasizing his strong commitment to education.
“We are opening now after 18 months, we have a grand audience. We want opera for the City, we want to be a center for culture and the arts.
Tosca
Photo: Ken Howard/ San Diego Opera
The Magic Flute
Photo: Cory Weaver/ LA Opera
Florencia en el Amazonas
Photo: Lynn Lane/ Houston Grand Opera
Fire Shut Up In My Bones
Photo: Eric Woolsey/ Opera Theatre St. Louis
“ McVicar’s Macbeth is entirely a new concept, a new production, and his feel for action and costume is amazing. It is dark and scary of course. It is a true picture of a very dark time in political history. McVicar , as a Scot, delves deeply in how to read Shakespeare. It is interesting that Verdi also takes us to the borderline of what is reality and what is metaphysical.”
The Elixir of Love
He will conduct Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love at the Lyric from September 26-October 8 before traveling to Zurich for Anna Bolena, also by Donizetti. He returns to the Lyric later in the season for the company premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up.
Proving Up
Although the weather was dreary in Glyndebourne the day we talked, Mazzola’s recent reviews on the festival’s first production of Louisa Miller which he conducted couldn’t have been sunnier. In 2019-2020 he had led this production at Lyric as part of the company’s early Verdi series. The Financial Times had just raved: “It is not often in Verdi that the conductor deserves pride of place. Enrique Mazzola goes beyond the usual niceties of Italianate style and focuses on the tautness of the drama to an exceptional degree, breathtakingly intense in some of the quietest places.”
Although he won’t be able to spend time in Montepulciano in his beloved Tuscany which has been his home for many years, Mazzola often pictures that sunny clime on rainy Glyndebourne days with definitely a pride of place.
“When I am in Tuscany I hop on my motorcycle and get lost in the small villages and forests. I am always shocked by the different colors: it is all a hidden paradise. There are no factories or big businesses. The people have a deep honesty, my neighbors work with their hands in the fields. Isn’t a mise en scene. They concentrate on their agriculture, producing olive oil and wine.”
For several years Mazzola has served as an Ambassador for Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
Mazzola with Andrei Gridchuk, viola solo, Deutshe Opera Berlin.
“This has has come out of a serious hobby, and there’s not a salary for an Ambassador. I don’t drink much alcohol but I am always proud to give a bottle to a friend and speak out about the qualities of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.”
Mazzola was born in Barcelona. As a child he was a choirboy in Milan and fell in love with La Scala.
Widely recognized as one of today’s foremost interpreters and champions of bel canto opera and a leading specialist of French works as well as early Verdi, Mazzola has been in great demand worldwide in both operatic and symphonic repertoires. He has served as principal guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and until 2019 as artistic and music director of the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France (ONDIF) in Paris. In recognition of his significant contributions to musical life in France, Mazzola was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2018. He is also known for his interpretation of contemporary music. Just before COVID, he conducted in Zurich, New York, Salzburg, Berlin and with orchestras of Quebec and Taiwan. He is known for his sold-out series and recordings, including Beethoven’s Piano Concerto N. 1 with ONDIF.
Although he has expanded his Verdi interest to the mature Verdi he greatly admires that “the young Verdi was listening to everything around him and was a natural bridge to so much including bel canto. I have always been interested in the young romantics and the extremes of cotemporary.”
It is the pleasure of this magazine to add our welcomes to a much anticipated and admired new citizen of Chicago.
For more about the Lyric Opera’s 2021-22 season, visit: lyricopera.org
