When the last toot of the flute at Lyric Opera sounds for the season, it can get very quiet in the Windy City, until that next gala opening signals the return of larger-scale operatic offerings. Chamber-sized opera and academic programming keep the whistles wet, but there’s something about a stage full of people who are trained to scream beautifully all yelling together that is unequalled, and once you’ve been swept away by the spectacle that is grand opera, you can find yourself seriously jonesing for your next fix.
That void is now occupied by the Opera Festival of Chicago, which has begun its fulsome performance schedule for 2025, filling that grand opera gap during another sweltering lakeside summer. The fire and the fur are sure to fly, with a season titled “Love Is a Triangle,” offering both concerts and two Italian masterworks.
The festival opened its fifth season with a bang, bringing our city Italo Montemezzi’s “The Love Of Three Kings” (L’amore dei tre re) for the first time in seventy years, and both the press and the audience awarded it high praise. This fully staged production, directed by general director Sasha Gerritson, placed forty singers on the stage, and reinforced that sound with thirty-nine supporting instrumentalists. This three-act opera once enjoyed a plethora of productions but fell off the charts sometime after WWII, as the opera world tapped down the histrionics in favor of a more realistic approach.
This is the type of programming that puts an opera festival on the map, and Opera Festival of Chicago distinguishes itself and its city with this work. The roles were essayed by Andrea Silvestrelli (Archibaldo), Maria Kanyova (Fiora), Franco Pomponi (Manfredo), Andrew Morstein (Avito), Matthew DiBattista (Flaminio), Jade Dashá, Aldo Alan Navarrete, Viktoria Vizin and a chorus roster that was a veritable who’s who of Chicago’s operatic talent.
Next up, Opera Festival of Chicago will feature the rising stars of its Young Artists program on June 5 at Artifact Events (4325 North Ravenswood). This “Delicatessen Recital,” dedicated to food in opera, is presented in collaboration with the Accademia Italiana della Cucina. This is an important opportunity for the young singers on the company’s roster to gain real-time performing experience and to hone their repertoire. As a partnership between Opera Festival of Chicago and the opera programs at DePaul University and Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, this program is certain to bring even more talent to our city, and give said talent another reason to stay.
Opera Festival of Chicago’s “Love Of Three Kings” with Andrea Silvestrelli/Photo: Jacob B. Little
On June 14 at DePaul’s Jarvis Opera Hall, Verdi, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni and more Italian composers will be celebrated, with stories of love, betrayal and jealousy quickening the collective pulse. This concert carries the season’s name as its own—”Love Is a Triangle”—and will feature such company members as Angela De Venuto, Jerek Fernández, David Greene, Maria Kanyova, Joseph Lodato, Leo Radosavljevic and Franco Pomponi.
The festival closes out its season with Ruggero Leoncavallo’s gripping “Pagliacci” on June 27 and June 29 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. Emanuele Andrizzi conducts and Sasha Gerritson directs this beloved verismo masterpiece. Even if you think you don’t know “Pagliacci,” you know it, because the arresting melodies have become ubiquitous.
The opera opens with a prologue, as delivered by Tonio, the narrator of sorts, the audience’s way into the story and the true villain of the piece. You may well recognize Nedda’s lyric aria about birdsong and Beppe’s charming serenade to Colombina. It is impossible that you have never heard Canio’s heartbroken aria, “Vesti la giubba” (Put on the costume)—more likely, you sing it in the shower. The chorus music in this opera is particularly potent and therefore also memorable. This story of forbidden love, betrayal, and (spoiler alert) murder will stick with you, for its humanity as well as its compelling music.
Opera Festival of Chicago’s “Love of Three Kings” with Franco Pomponi and Maria Kanyova/Photo: Jacob B. Little
The casting of this opera is particularly exciting. Michelle Allie Drever (Nedda) is having a very interesting career, given the range of roles in her repertoire. This soprano’s name is on the lips of opera producers, directors and audiences in Southern California, and it cannot be long before this fine actor and her supple instrument obtains a much larger fan base. Opera Festival of Chicago favorite Franco Pomponi is sure to tear up a little scenery as Tonio. Jonathan Burton (Canio) is having a big career, specializing in some of the most difficult Italian tenor roles, and cannot possibly disappoint.
Jerek Fernández is a young artist with an appealing sound and presence—now is the time to see and hear him, when the CTA will take you right to him. One of Chicago’s favorite operatic performers, Jonathan Wilson, makes his role debut as Silvio, and the lyrical duet between Wilson and Drever is certain to be a highlight of this production. To miss this gloriously messy story as told by these fine singing actors would be a crime in itself.
In answering its mission to bring little- or too seldom-heard Italian opera masterworks to Chicago stages, the Opera Festival of Chicago has found its place in the mix, adding to the city’s summer glow.
Opera Festival of Chicago is at multiple locations through June 29. Tickets are available at operafestivalchicago.org.
