Chicagoan of the Year: Yankovskaya championed opera before & amid pandemic

Chicago Tribune

Chicago, IL

Nothing in classical music is more complex than opera, its many facets including singers, instrumentalists, conductor, director, lighting and stage designers, costumers and more.

In 2020, Chicago Opera Theater music director Lidiya Yankovskaya led the company in a fully staged world premiere before the pandemic and daring online performances amid the shutdown. In both settings, Yankovskaya and COT emerged as the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it.

The company’s year began dramatically, with the world premiere of composer-librettist Dan Shore’s “Freedom Ride” at the Studebaker Theater. It told the story of the brave souls who fought for civil rights in the South in the early 1960s – and suffered violent reprisals because of it. In light of the Black Lives Matter protests that shook this country after COT’s February premiere, “Freedom Ride” proved timely.

“That story is so important and so essential,” says Yankovskaya, who for years had been working to bring “Freedom Ride” to the stage.

“Although it is such a crucial part of our history — and our not-so-distant history — so many people are not aware of the dangers and the types of risks that the Freedom Riders took in order to create change. … As 2020 evolved, we also saw similar things happening in the world around us, which made it even more poignant after the end of the production.”

By the time COT was gearing up to the present the first performance of composer Stacy Garrop and librettist Jerre Dye’s “The Transformation of Jane Doe,” theaters had been shuttered indefinitely for public performance. But rather than prerecord a concert reading of the piece, Yankovskaya and colleagues decided to present a livestream in the Studebaker Theater in September.

Even rehearsing the new work was not easy, considering essential health protocols.

“The singers had to be 8 feet apart and always 15 feet from the pit,” explains Yankovskaya. “The instrumentalists had to be very far apart, in particular the wind players. When singers were singing, they weren’t allowed to turn toward each other.

“We rehearsed all of it masked. The soprano part is extremely challenging. I don’t know how our singers managed to sing in a mask. And as a conductor, (it was difficult) adjusting my ears to what I’m hearing through masks.”

The vocalists performed without masks for the livestream, which proceeded remarkably smoothly, notwithstanding some understandably rudimentary lighting and camerawork.

“I’m thrilled we did the livestream version,” says Yankovskaya. “It gives something to the audience that is more akin to what you get in a theater. That danger, that risk of something going very wrong, is there in opera performances. There are so many moving parts.

“Part of what you’re coming to hear is not a flawless performance but the hope of a flawless performance – and the danger of something going wrong.”

Just two months later, the company streamed “Rimsky Rebooted,” a prerecorded concert featuring music by Rimsky-Korsakov and others. This was not what the company originally had envisioned: a rare performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Invisible City of Kitezh.” As the pandemic situation worsened, COT retrenched by planning a performance of the composer’s “Kaschej the Immortal,” which would involve a smaller cast. Finally, Yankovskaya and colleagues had to recalibrate once more, conceiving the scaled-down “Rimsky Rebooted” recital.

Canceling “The Invisible City of Kitezh” “was such a shame,” says Yankovskaya. “It’s a masterpiece and rarely heard. We found a very good alternative in ‘Kaschej the Immortal,’ also a piece that deserves to be heard, but we had to cancel two weeks before starting rehearsal.”

Rather than throw in the towel, Yankovskaya and friends put together a recital that included “Kaschej” excerpts and other repertoire, which gave listeners the added pleasure of hearing Yankovskaya as piano accompanist.

Yankovskaya offered one other signal event this year: “Voices of Refuge,” an August concert with a critical message. Staged outside the Chicago History Museum, the program served to remind listeners that beloved music by Chopin, Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Irving Berlin and others was the handiwork of refugees.

It was presented as a joint venture between COT and the Refugee Orchestra Project, which Yankovskaya founded in 2015 to illuminate how much refugees have brought to our musical lives. The cause is personal to her, for she and her family suffered persecution as Jews living in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the late 20th century.

“The Refugee Orchestra Project attempts to celebrate the social and cultural contributions of refugees throughout history,” explains Yankovskaya.

“It’s a unifying message and reminds us all that at any point we could all end up in a position of being refugees. Today we may be comfortable and well, but tomorrow the government structure and society might fall apart, and we might need to seek refuge elsewhere.”

Conducting this concert “was frankly an emotional experience,” adds the conductor. “To be together was really meaningful, especially (because of) the nature of the concert and the meaning of the message.”