Defining limitless: Lidiya Yankovskaya on leadership and identity

Opera Now

London, UK

Few musicians can claim to have conducted more than 40 world premieres by the age of 38. Step forward Lidiya Yankovskaya, the outgoing music director of Chicago Opera Theater and named Chicagoan of the Year for 2020, when the Chicago Tribune praised her as “the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it.”

In her seven years in post, despite the onslaught of disruptive world events – maybe even because of them – she has spearheaded initiatives that variously cultivate new opera makers, female and diverse conductors and composers, and a new generation of artistic leaders.

She made her London debut in 2023, conducting Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs in a rare staging at English National Opera; earlier this year she returned for two concert performances with the company of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Now, though, she is entering a new era: she has resigned from Chicago Opera Theater (COT) to concentrate on opportunities further afield, and is leaving later this summer.

It seems startling to relinquish such a post, but Yankovskaya feels ready for the challenges ahead.