Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric.
Opera in Chicago 1850–1954
The first opera to be performed in Chicago was Bellini's La sonnambula, presented by a traveling opera company on 29 July 1850. Chicago's first opera house opened in 1865 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871. The second opera house, the Chicago Auditorium, opened in 1889.
In 1929 the current Civic Opera House on 20 North Wacker Drive was opened, though the Chicago Civic Opera Company itself collapsed in the Great Depression. The old Auditorium continued to produce stage shows and musicals until it closed in 1941.
Resident opera companies began in Chicago in 1910 with the Chicago Grand Opera Company being formed from the remains of the Manhattan Opera Company, which had been founded by Oscar Hammerstein I, and had been squeezed out by the more financially sound Metropolitan Opera. Chicago had this first company for four seasons, then, after no season in 1914/15, it was re-formed as the Chicago Opera Association. This lasted through 1921/22, when it became the Chicago Civic Opera from 1922 until 1932. After no season in 1932/33, the company was re-formed and again named the Chicago Grand Opera Company from 1933 to 1935. From 1936 to 1939, the company was called Chicago City Opera Company, and finally from 1940 to 1946 opera was presented by the Chicago Opera Company. There were no seasons from 1947 until 1953, so opera was presented by other companies on tour. Lyric Opera was formed in 1954 and has continued uninterrupted except for 1967.
Lyric Opera, 1954 to 1980
Carol Fox, America's first female opera impresario at the age of 28, began her first season in 1954 by bringing Maria Callas for her American debut in the title role of Norma, the first of many electrifying Callas performances in Chicago. However, this first eight-opera season in 1954 was not the result of a long apprenticeship in opera production; Carol Fox, fluent in Italian and French, had studied opera singing for many years, culminating in two years of intensive work in Italy. However, when she realized that performance was not to be in her future, she decided that it lay in bringing the performances of the world's finest artists to her home town of Chicago. Her success can be measured in one statistic regarding the filling of the Lyric's Civic Opera House: in 1954, the season ran for three weeks; in 2007/08 the Lyric had an almost six-month season.
Fox also used her formidable persuasive powers on artists other than singers: she was able to bring Rudolph Nureyev to make his debut on an American opera stage at the Lyric; Vera Zorina, Alicia Markova, Erik Bruhn and Maria Tallchief also danced at the Lyric, and George Balanchine created choreography for the Lyric. The Italian composer Pino Donati was her artistic director. Bruno Bartoletti was principal conductor, but other conductors included Tullio Serafin, Dimitri Mitropoulos and Artur Rodziński. Christoph von Dohnányi and Sir Georg Solti chose the Lyric for their American operatic debuts. Franco Zeffirelli staged operas as did Harold Prince. After retiring from dancing, Tallchief moved to Chicago where she served as director of ballet for the Lyric from 1973 to 1979. In 1974, she founded Lyric Opera's ballet school, where she taught the Balanchine technique.
Because of Fox's illnesses and her refusal to lower her artistic standards despite the Lyric's dire financial state in 1980, her resignation was sought and given. She died a few months later, survived by a daughter, Victoria.
It was of the Lyric's founder that Saul Bellow wrote in 1979 "Miss Fox will be remembered, together with Jane Addams of Hull House and Harriet Monroe of Poetry magazine, as one of Chicago's greatest women."