This November, the Lyric Opera of Chicago performs two very stylistically different works: Alban Berg's 1925 expressionistic masterpiece Wozzeck and Franz Lehar's 1905 bubbly comic operetta The Merry Widow. Though only two decades separate the premieres of both works, sonically they are worlds apart. Berg's mastered 12-tone composing techniques for Wozzeck, while Lehar's romantic melodies are emblematic of Vienna's "Silver Age" of operetta.
Conducting both pieces is Lyric music director Sir Andrew Davis. He's aided by gay chorus master Michael Black, who is in the midst of his fourth season in at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Davis is scheduled to conduct four operas this season ( including the soon-to-close Cinderella and the world premiere of Bel Canto this December ), while Black is responsible for leading the chorus in all eight of the scheduled operas at Lyric.
"It's quite a challenging season," said Black about teaching choral scores by composers spanning four different centuries. "There's a huge variety of musical styles."
For instance, Black says the Lyric chorus is learning a whole new tonal language with composer Jimmy Lopez's Bel Canto. It features a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz that features multiple languages like Spanish, Japanese and English to reflect the international hostage crisis in South America originally inspired from Ann Patchett's award-winning novel.
"And at the other extreme you have something like Nabucco. It's one of the very few operas with more words to learn for a chorus ( than the title role )," said Black about Verdi's first big hit opera from 1842 about Hebrew slaves in Babylonia. "But the sense of tonality is one that is familiar with everyone and they can basically sight read it."
Black has previously prepared Wozzeck earlier in his career and he's grateful for that experience due to the opera's many musical challenges. Black is also very glad once again to work with gay Scottish director Sir David McVicar on the Lyric's new production.
"The interesting thing about [McVicar's] work in regards to chorus work is, like he does with Wozzeck or with Rusalka last season, if the chorus is only featured in quite a small part of the opera, he still features them in a way that they become part of the fabric of the story—rather than some other directors who just get them to walk on and walk off," Black said. "The chorus loves this and they love working with him. So they don't feel as though they're just singing a few bars and leaving."
Black revealed that McVicar's take on Wozzeck is to reset the opera just immediately after World War I with lots of displaced people and shell-shocked soldiers. Many of the choristers have to wear prosthetic limbs to show how they have been physically ravaged by war.
"The backstory [McVicar] gives them individually as characters and collectively as a group, means that when they sing, I think they sing with far more intent," Black said. "The thing that makes it far more enjoyable is to work with a director like Sir David and a conductor like Sir Andrew Davis who together just create this amazing tonal scene and visual scene and the chorus just loves coming into work every day."
Previously the chorus master for Opera Australia, Black was initially hired away from his native country to be an interim Lyric chorus master for the 2011-12 season after previous chorus master Donald Nally stepped down. But Black was immediately asked back when the replacement chorus master Martin Wright withdrew from the position due to personal health reasons. Black began full time at Lyric in August 2013, and the company used the occasion for a comprehensive in-house feature on him in playbills handed out to patrons at the start of the season.
"When the Lyric did the feature on me for the program, I was really pleased that the picture of my family was front and center in the program," said Black about his teenage son, Liam, and his then-partner, baritone Tom Hamilton. "I appreciated the fact that the Lyric treated us with great normality. It was wonderful."
Sir David McVicar's new production of Berg's Wozzeck for the Lyric Opera of Chicago premieres 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1. Subsequent performances are at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4, 7, 12, 16 and 21.
A remaining performance of Rossini's Cinderella is at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, while a 10-performance run of Lehar's The Merry Widow begins 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14, and concludes on Sunday, Dec. 13. Other operas in repertory this season include the world premiere of Jimmy Lopez's Bel Canto ( 7 performances between Dec. 7 to Jan. 17 ), Verdi's Nabucco ( 7 performances between Jan. 23 to Feb. 12 ), Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier ( 8 performances between Feb. 8 to March 13 ) and Gounod's Romeo and Juliet ( 9 performances between Feb. 22 to March 19 ).
All performances are at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr. Tickets are $20-$329; call 312-827-5600 or visit www.lyricopera.org .
