Players 50 2022: The Music Makers

Newcity Stage

Chicago, IL

First is the joy of the return. The joy of seeing old friends in the flesh for the first time in so very long. The joy of live performance, in a theater, on a stage. The joy of applause, of a standing ovation. Of audience chatter, at intermission, after the show.

And then there’s the concern about those who have not returned. Who may not, who will not. And then there’s the thanks for those who helped us get to this point.

If you, like me, have been to many opening nights this fall, reopening nights, you experienced a recurring moment of joy, when each company, each audience acknowledged the simple excitement of just being there, of the return. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We hope.

In our return, the return of the Players 50 list, we tried to honor those who came back, who’ve already been putting shows on stages, while crossing our fingers that those we’ve not heard from are just around the corner.

We tried to honor many of those who turned the pandemic into a pivot, and filled the shutdown with their art, via streaming that we could watch from our own shut-in homes. And those who had the expertise in the medium of video and broadcast to help them achieve it.

And we especially tried to honor those who helped so many get through, with financial support, with community activism, with whatever it took, with whatever they could.

Ashley Magnus and Lidiya Yankovskaya
General Director and Music Director, Chicago Opera Theater
Opera is a collaborative, and at its best, a transformative art form. “The stories you’re telling onstage really do transform who is coming to experience those stories,” says Chicago Opera Theater’s general director Ashley Magnus. Arriving from Utah Symphony | Utah Opera in 2015 and eventually taking up the general director mantle in early 2018, Magnus was part of the committee that ushered in an exciting new artistic era by bringing Russian-American conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya to COT as music director. Yankovskaya describes their partnership as “beautiful” and says that they are both deeply committed to new works. In its nearly fifty-year history, the group had commissioned a single opera. “We have nine we have done, are going to do or are in development,” says Yankovskaya. “Six are by creators of color, six are by female composers. Our goal is to tell relevant stories that are by and about people of today that reflect the people of our city.” That remained so even when the pandemic prevented live performances. “Our thought was we needed to continue to connect with our audiences,” says Magnus. That gamble paid off with live-streamed and recorded-as-live performances that were an inspirational beacon to many. Live performances returned last September. “A performance needs an audience to reach its full potential,” says Yankovskaya.