Nominated “Best Opera Orchestra” by the International Opera Awards 2018, the Lyric Opera Orchestra has been a vital and integral part of Lyric Opera of Chicago since the company’s founding and first performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in February of 1954. 2022-2023 marks the Lyric Opera Orchestra's 68th season, performing works by Verdi, Rossini, Humperdinck, Bizet, Bernstein, Bock, Liverman & Rico, Roumain, Shaw, and Adams with an impressive array of international opera stars and conductors.

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But we are so much more.

During the past 68 years, the Lyric Opera Orchestra has performed under many of the world’s leading conductors including Artur Rodziński, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Georg Solti, Christoph von Dohnányi, Ferdinand Leitner, and Zubin Mehta. Under its former music director Sir Andrew Davis, the Lyric Opera Orchestra has performed Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen as well as operas of Strauss, Mozart, Tippett, Janacek, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Massenet, and many others. The Lyric Orchestra is thrilled to be working with recently appointed music director Enrique Mazzola as he takes the entire company to new heights with his unbounded enthusiasm for and deep knowledge of the operatic canon.

Featured and televised nationally on PBS Great Performances series, the Lyric Opera Orchestra takes its place among an international roster of renowned artists and performing arts companies with broadcasts of “Concerts for Peace” (2012), Jimmy Lopez’s Bel Canto (2016), and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (2017).