With ‘The Nose,’ transformative music director Lidiya Yankovskaya departs COT

Chicago Tribune

Chicago, IL

“The Nose” wasn’t planned as Lidiya Yankovskaya’s swan song from Chicago Opera Theater, the company she’s led as music director since 2017. But Dmitri Shostakovich’s absurdist political satire, composed when the composer was in his early 20s, is as fitting a farewell as they come for the conductor.

Yankovskaya — named the Tribune’s 2020 Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music — has raised the profile of COT immensely, her interpretations bracing and repertoire head-spinningly varied: She led 25 new-to-Chicago works, 11 of which were world premieres. She’s also fashioned COT as a primo stop for artists growing their careers by formalizing COT’s Young Artist Program and founding its Vanguard Initiative, which pairs first-time opera composers with accomplished librettists to trial-run a new work.

With “The Nose,” the company even convinced Francesca Zambello, artistic director of Washington National Opera, to devise a brand-new production. Attracting that kind of high-profile talent would have been unheard of for the lean company a few short seasons ago.

“(We’re) pushing to do things at the highest artistic level possible,” Yankovskaya says. “I think that’s what allows us to get someone like Francesca Zambello to want to work with COT on such a complicated piece.”