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P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
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April - May, 2017
He has performed with Chicago OperaTheater,
Goodman Theatre, Paramount Theatre, Drury
Lane Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Saint Louis’s
MUNY, New Orleans Opera, Finger Lakes
Opera, and many local dance companies.
JACQUELINE STEWART
has appeared at Lyric this
season in
Les Troyens
and
Eugene Onegin
. She has also
recently performed with
the Chicago Repertory
Ballet, New York’s Artisan
Dance Company (
The
Nutcracker
), Thodos Dance
Chicago, and in the pre-Broadway presentation
of
Anastasia
. Stewart’s choreography has been
showcased by numerous dance companies,
including the Madison Ballet, the Chicago
Repertory Ballet, and Winifred Haun. She is
the recipient of the choreographic award from
the Joyce Theatre Foundation’s A. W. A. R. D.
Show.
J TYLER WHITMER*
is an active Chicago
performer, having appeared
with the Marriott Theatre
(
Anything Goes
,
La Cage
aux Folles
,
Cats
,
9 to 5
,
The Producers
,
The Bowery
Boys
), Mercury Theatre
(
Barnum
), and Paramount
Theatre (
Miss Saigon
,
Oklahoma!
,
The Little
Mermaid
). Performances at other venues
include Carnegie Hall, Guthrie Theater, Write
Act Repertory, The Gallery Players, Beef and
Boards Theatre, and the Kansas City Pops.
Whitmer also appeared in PBS’s production of
HMS Pinafore
staged at the Guthrie Theater.
Principal Understudies
JEFF DIEBOLD
(
u/s
Henry Higgins
) has been
featured in many leading
roles throughout the
Chicagoland area. Most
recently he portrayed Sam
Carmichael/
Mamma Mia!
at the Paramount Theatre,
a role repeated on the U.S.
tour of the Broadway production. Other
notable appearances include Lurch/
The Addams
Family
(Mercury Theatre), Cornelius Hackl/
Hello Dolly!
(Drury Lane Theatre), and Joe
Hardy/
Damn Yankees
(Metropolis Performing
Arts Centre in Arlington Heights), as well as
productions with Chicago Shakespeare Theater,
Court Theatre, Theatre at the Center, and Noble
Fool Theater. Diebold received his master’s
degree in acting from Roosevelt University’s
Chicago College of Performing Arts.
JENNIE SOPHIA
(
u/s
Eliza Doolittle
), who
debuted at Lyric in
The
Merry Widow
last season,
has been featured with
many Chicago-area the-
aters, including the Good-
man (
Brigadoon
), Drury
Lane Theatre (
The Sound
of Music
,
Oliver!
,
Les Misérables
), Chicago
Shakespeare Theater (
Passion
,
How Can
You Run With a Shell on Your Back
), Light
Opera Works (
Camelot
), Court Theatre (
The
Secret Garden
), and Circle Theatre (
Kiss Me
Kate!
). She starred as Nellie Forbush in the
U. S. Broadway national tour of
South Pacific
.
Sophia was nominated for an IRNE Award for
best lead actress in a musical for
South Pacific
(Ogunquit Playhouse).
Production Team
DAVID CHASE
(
Con-
ductor
) has been on
the podium for Lyric
productions of
Carousel
(debut) and
The King and
I.
Chase has been music
director, music supervisor,
and/or dance arranger on
32 Broadway productions
and his work can currently be heard on
Broadway in the new musical
Anastasia
and
the Bette Midler revival of
Hello, Dolly!
, as well
as on the national tours of
Finding Neverland
and
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
Cinderella
.
He has two Emmy nominations for music
direction for NBC’s live 2013 telecasts of
The Sound of
Music
and
Peter Pan,
and a
Grammy nomination for co-producing the
Broadway cast album of
Nice Work if You Can
Get It
. His arrangements can also be heard
in London’s West End (revivals of
Evita
and
Guys and Dolls
, currently-running
Dreamgirls
)
.
Beyond the theater, Chase has written multiple
arrangements for the Boston Pops (including
their signature “Twelve Days of Christmas”),
the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Kennedy
Center Honors, Essential Voices USA, and
the
Radio City Christmas
Spectacular
.
ROBERT CARSEN
(
Ori-
ginal Director, Co-Lighting
Designer
), whose produc-
tion of
Eugene Onegin
was
seen at Lyric this season,
has directed five other
operas for the company,
most recently
Dialogues des
Carmélites
and
Iphigénie
en Tauride.
His current season includes the
Metropolitan Opera (
Der Rosenkavalier
,
new production), Turin’s Teatro Regio
(
Katya Kabanova
), and Opéra de Lausanne
(Monteverdi’s
Orfeo
). Carsen has worked
extensively at the Opéra National de Paris,
in repertoire ranging from
Les Boréades
to
Les
contes d’Hoffmann, Rusalka,
and
Capriccio
(all
released on DVD)
.
Other major achievements
include
Dialogues des Carmélites
(10 major
companies, among them Amsterdam, Covent
Garden, and La Scala),
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
(Aix-en-Provence and many other
theaters),
The Magic Flute
(Baden-Baden),
Falstaff
(Covent Garden, La Scala, Met,
Amsterdam, Toronto), and
L’incoronazione
di Poppea
and
Rinaldo
(Glyndebourne). His
Ring
cycle has triumphed in Cologne, Venice,
Barcelona, and Shanghai. Musical-theater
productions include
The Beautiful Game
(West
End),
Sunset Boulevard
(U. K. tour),
Candide
(Châtelet, English National Opera, La Scala),
My Fair Lady
(Théâtre du Châtelet, Mariinsky
Theatre), and
Singin’ in the Rain
(Châtelet).
(See director’s note, p. 35.)
OLIVIER FREDJ*
(
Revi-
val
Director
)
studied
British literature, drama,
and music at the Hoge-
school voor de Kunsten in
the Netherlands. Starting
off as a coor-dinator of
educational and social
projects in several cities
around Europe and South Africa, he then
worked as a cultural journalist before attending
the Studio Théâtre d’Asnières. He was a stage
manager at the Opéra-Comique, Théâtre de
Caen, and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In
2010 Fredj began his collaboration with Robert
Carsen on theThéâtre du Châtelet’s production
of
My Fair Lady
and directed its reprise at
the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. He
worked again with Robert Carsen on
Singin’ in
the Rain
at the Châtelet, where he also assisted
Lee Blakeley (
Sweeney Todd
) and Emilio Sagi
(
The Sound of Music
) and directed Mozart’s
Il
re pastore
. He assisted Robert Carsen (
Rigoletto
)
and Simon McBurney (
The Magic Flute
) at
the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Fredj’s current
season highlights include Verdi’s
Macbeth
*Lyric debut