Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is committed to redefining what it means to experience great opera. The company is driven to deliver consistently excellent artistry through innovative, relevant, celebratory programming that engages and energizes new and traditional audiences.
Under the leadership of General Director, President & CEO Anthony Freud, Music Director Enrique Mazzola, and Special Projects Advisor Renée Fleming, Lyric is dedicated to reflecting, and drawing strength from, the diversity of Chicago. Lyric offers, through innovation, collaboration, and evolving learning opportunities, ever-more exciting, accessible, and thought-provoking audience and community experiences. We also stand committed to training the artists of the future, through The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center; and to becoming increasingly diverse across our audiences, staff, programming, and artists—magnifying the welcoming pull of our art form, our company, and our city.
Through the timeless power of voice, the splendor of a great orchestra and chorus, theater, dance, design, and truly magnificent stagecraft, Lyric is devoted to immersing audiences in worlds both familiar and unexpected, creating shared experiences that resonate long after the curtain comes down.
Ailyn Pérez
Hailed by The New York Times as “a beautiful woman who commands the stage” and “a major soprano,” Ailyn Pérez is in demand at the world’s leading opera houses and cultural capitals. As Opera News observes, “The phrase ‘an embarrassment of riches’ might have been invented to describe the combination of talents that belong to Ailyn Pérez … who truly seems to have it all.” Internationally celebrated for her signature artistry, as the winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award she became the first Hispanic recipient in the award’s history.
Notable engagements of the past season include Ailyn’s greatly anticipated debut as the titular character in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Teatro di San Carlo, a role she also revisited at Houston Grand Opera and Teatro Real de Madrid. At the Metropolitan Opera, she made her thrilling role debut as Florencia Grimaldi in a new production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas and starred as Micaëla in Carmen. Additionally, she sang her first performance with Washington Concert Opera as Magda in La Rondine and took on the title role of Tosca at Hamburg State Opera. Beyond the opera house, Ailyn paid tribute to the legendary soprano Renée Fleming at the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honors Gala, and she graced the stage at Carnegie Hall for the prestigious 2023 Richard Tucker Gala Concert. She also commemorated the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s death with a special concert alongside La Súper in Monterrey, Mexico, under the baton of Abdiel Vázquez.
Ailyn Pérez is a graduate of Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts and Indiana University. She serves as an Artistic Advisor and on the faculty for the Vincero Academy and is an Opera for Peace Ambassador. Her many accolades include the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award (2016), George London Foundation’s Leonie Rysanek Award (2006), Shoshana Foundation Career Grant (2007), 2nd place in the 2006 Operalia Competition, and honors from the Loren L. Zachary Foundation, Opera Index, and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation.
Travon D. Walker
The second-year Ryan Opera Center tenor recently received his master’s degree from Rice University, where he sang Sam Kaplan in Street Scene. In Lyric’s 2024/25 Season, he will appear as Borsa in Rigoletto, 1st Prisoner in Fidelio, Son in Blue, and Parpignol in La Bohème.
A native of Hinesville, Georgia, Walker completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music. While there, he made his operatic debut in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Walker has been a Studio Artist at Wolf Trap Opera and was invited to participate in Renée Fleming’s 2023 SongStudio and Joyce DiDonato’s 2024 Masterclass Series, both at Carnegie Hall, as well as the 2023 Britten Pears Young Artist Programme. Other engagements include the Erie Philharmonic and Houston Grand Opera (Jeremy Howard Beck’s Another City, world premiere).
Walker received an Encouragement Award from the Kansas City District in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition.
