LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM:
Susan Mathieson Mayer
Magda Krance (mkrance@lyricopera.org)
Jack Zimmerman (jzimmerman@lyricopera.org)
20 North Wacker Drive
Chicago, IL 60606
312-332-2244

Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien
to sing title role in final five performances
of Tchaikovsky’s EUGENE ONEGIN (Mar. 17, 21, 24, 27, 30) at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Siberian baritone DMITRI HVOROSTOVSKY will sing title role in first five performances (Mar. 1, 5, 8, 11, 14)

Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien will portray the title-role antihero in the final five performances of Tchaikovsky’s romantic masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, at Lyric Opera of Chicago next March, Lyric’s general director William Mason has announced. Kwiecien made his debut at Lyric as Silvio in Pagliacci, which opened the company’s 2002-03 season.

When Lyric’s 2007-08 season was announced in January, Dmitri Hvorostovsky was scheduled to sing all ten performances of the 53rd season’s final opera. The Siberian baritone has asked to be released from the second half of his contract. According to his manager, Mark Hildrew, director of Askonas Holt Ltd., “Dmitri Hvorostovsky has decided for personal reasons to devote more time to his work in Europe, enabling him to spend more time with his family.”

Mariusz Kwiecien is one of the fastest rising stars of the opera world, known for his handsome voice, incisive musicianship, and captivating stage presence. The baritone began the 2006-2007 season at the Bolshoi Opera (debut) with the title role in a new production of Eugene Onegin. He also sang the title role in Don Giovanni with Seattle Opera and Houston Grand Opera, and appeared in a gala concert honoring the Metropolitan Opera’s 40th Anniversary at Lincoln Center.

European engagements this season include Marcello/La bohème at Hamburg State Opera and Belcore/L’elisir d’amore at the Vienna State Opera. Kwiecien performs Count Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro at San Diego Opera. In July he returns to Japan for his first performances of Escamillo/Carmen with the Veroza Company and Seiji Ozawa. Also this summer he portrays Don Giovanni at San Francisco Opera.

Kwiecien appears frequently at the Metropolitan Opera, where in recent seasons he has sung Marcello/La bohème, Silvio/Pagliacci, and Malatesta in a new production of Don Pasquale. Under the baton of Maestro James Levine, he has sung Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro and Guglielmo/Così fan tutte. He has also worked with Maestro Levine at the Tanglewood Festival, singing the title role/Don Giovanni with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and MET Chamber ensemble for performances of Bach’s Cantata No. 82, Ravel’s Don Quichotte songs, and Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzer. He is an alumnus of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Program.

Kwiecien’s recent U.S. engagements include Silvio/Pagliacci at Los Angeles Opera and in a new production at Lyric Opera of Chicago (debut, 2002-03), and Marcello/La bohème with San Francisco Opera (debut). He has distinguished himself as Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, and in the new production at Santa Fe Opera. He also sang the title role/Eugene Onegin in Warsaw, and Count Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival and at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Kwiecien’s European career has included Belcore/L’elisir d’amore for Paris Opera debut and in a new production at The Netherlands Opera, Guglielmo/Così fan tutte at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and his debut at La Scala as Ottokar/Der Freischütz. Other engagements include his debut with the Hamburg State Opera in the world premiere of Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules, which was released on CD, Marcello/La bohème at the Arena di Verona, and Dunois in Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans with Strasbourg’s Opéra National du Rhin. Vienna audiences have heard him as Count Robinson in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, while Brazilian audiences heard him as Enrico/Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro Municipal in Sao Paulo. In 1996 he made his Warsaw Opera debut as Stanislaw in Moniuszko’s rarely performed Verbum Nobile, and also sang Papageno in Die Zauberflöte.

Kwiecien has won awards in several international vocal competitions since 1994. He was selected to represent his native Poland in the 1999 Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff, Wales.

EUGENE ONEGIN / Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky – 10 performances – Mar. 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 21, 24, 27 (ma), 30 (ma). Sung in Russian with projected English titles.

Tchaikovsky’s heartbreaking romance has been heard at Lyric only twice previously, in 1984 and 1990/91. Based on the world-famous poem of the same name by Aleksandr Pushkin, this opera presents a cynical antihero, Onegin (baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky Mar. 1-14 and Mariusz Kwiecien Mar. 17-30), with whom the inexperienced country girl Tatiana (soprano Barbara Frittoli, debut) falls in love. Her passionate letter to him sets in motion a series of catastrophic events leading to a duel in which Onegin kills Lensky, Onegin’s best friend (tenor Frank Lopardo) and fiancé of Tatiana’s sister Olga (mezzo-soprano Nino Surguladze, debut). A chance meeting three years later with Tatiana, now the sophisticated wife of Prince Gremin (bass Vitalij Kowaljow, debut), awakens Onegin’s feelings for her, but by then it is too late. Others figuring in the story are the mother of Tatiana and Olga, Mme. Larina (soprano Marie Plette, debut); their nurse, Filipyevna (mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers); and the girls’ French tutor, Triquet (tenor Keith Jameson, debut).

Sir Andrew Davis will conduct the production, of which Robert Carsen is the original stage director. The revival director is Paula Suozzi (debut). The set and costume designer is Michael Levine. Donald Nally is chorus master. The original lighting design is by Jean Kalman; revival lighting designer is Christine Binder. Original choreography by Serge Bennathan; revival choreographer is August Tye.
The production is on loan from the Metropolitan Opera. The Lyric Opera presentation is generously made possible by an Anonymous Donor and Nuveen Investments.