Everest / Aleko

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago, IL

“Enterprisingly mounted by a boundary-breaching company and featuring a massive chorus and orchestra and eight soaring talents, the whole was greater than its parts, terrific as they were on their own. Featuring 140 members of Chicago’s established and admired Apollo Chorus, performers from the A&A Ballet, and a 70-person orchestra conducted by the wonderful Lidiya Yankovskaya, this tandem triumph was ambition on steroids. Though COT could not have found two more different one-act operas to revive, happily enough they testify to the power of music to tell any story deeper than words.”
–Lawrence Bommer, Stage and Cinema

”Chicago Opera Theater may be entering a golden age in its history—a Russian golden age. The city’s No. 2 opera company had its most successful season in a decade last year, with new music director Lidiya Yankovskaya [and] Saturday night the juggernaut continued… With Yankovskaya leading the orchestra in behind, one got a striking visual of the multiple components at work in Saturday night’s opening. Written for large orchestra and chorus, the Everest score was wholly compelling from the atmospheric wind noise and hushed violin oscillations that begin the opera to the blast of loud wind at the end. Talbot’s style is unapologetically grand and tonal, often surging to big cinematic tuttis and back again, with lyrical moments alternating with brass chords, bass drum rolls, and the wind machine reflecting the climb’s deadly dangers. Lidiya Yankovkaya continues to impress with every performance. Even working behind the singers and stage action, she balanced the large orchestra, cast, chorus and wind effects with great clarity and dramatic point, keeping this complex and challenging score on track with clear direction and firm momentum. The Apollo Chorus delivered all the power, mystery and atmosphere of Talbot’s choral passages… [In Aleko] Yankovskaya drew a surprisingly Russian sonority from the orchestra, with expansive sable-dark string playing. The whirling dance sequences were lively and colorful, the dramatic moments intense and compelling. Likewise, the Apollo Chorus’s corporate vocalism as gypsy camp habitues was robust and their Russian sounded entirely idiomatic. As shown in this weekend’s Aleko and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta last season, COT’s young Russian-American music director is an inspirational advocate for operas from the land of her birth. One looks forward to more Russian explorations in future seasons.”

–Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review

“Lidiya Yankovskaya, COT’s music director, led the orchestra (huge by COT standards, at nearly 70 players) and chorus (the 140-member Apollo Chorus). The orchestra offered attractive sound and support for the principals and was effective at every turn in setting the scene with Talbot’s mesmerizing music.”
–M.L. Rantala, Hyde Park Herald

“The Harris stage—occupied by a full orchestra, an expanded Apollo Chorus, and, intermittently, by dancers—was transformed into the hostile Mount Everest environment as a killer snowstorm came in. It was a transformation riding not only on projections, but on Talbot’s inventive orchestral score, conducted by COT music director Lidiya Yankovskaya and including judicious use of electronic elements. We heard the wind whistle and moan, the ice tingle and crack, as life was distilled to its most basic, bone-chilling struggle: “How many breaths will you take before you die?””
–Deanna Isaacs, Chicago Reader

“With Aleko, musical director Lidiya Yankovskaya swiftly took the spotlight. A vibrant and dynamic energy connected her physical gestures with Rachmaninov’s music. She breathed through the musical forces, and the orchestra was on top form.”
–Katherine Syer, Bachtrack

“Both operas were superbly conducted by COT’s music director, Lidiya Yankovskaya, who led a 70-piece onstage orchestra backed by the haunting voices of the Apollo Chorus.”
–Hedy Weiss, WTTW

“Maestra Yankovskaya has the rein to bring the repertoire of her homeland to Chicago. [Aleko is] colorful, for sure, drawn as it is Russia’s poet laureate Alexander Pushkin and his oft-adapted poem The Gypsies… Everest is freakishly assured, and, as it transpires, justifiably so. Given the events that inspired the opera are just more than 20 years old, Maestra Lidiya Yankovskaya makes especial praise of the opera’s plainspoken appeal. As sung by the Apollo Chorus of Chicago…a hundred-strong, so that sound lands like a boulder. Quite the sound, too. Talbot’s score is as harmonically arresting as it is casually form-bending — it’s as much an opera as it is an oratorio as it is a tone poem as it is an electronica soundscape as it is a film score for the stage.”
–Patrick O’Brien, Chicagoland Musical Theatre

“Chicago Opera Theater, under the baton of Lidiya Yankovskaya, yet again astounds.”
–Amy Munice, Picture This Post

“Composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer’s work provides the material for a deeply emotionally felt account of the tragedy, which Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya and Chicago Opera Theater (COT) did not fail to deliver. Under the musical direction of Yankovskaya, COT has made a name for itself as one of the foremost national champions of new opera, with last season’s critically acclaimed Moby Dick establishing the company as a major player in this role. The trend continues with Everest, in which a brilliant score, captivating performances from the soloists, and colorful and confident playing and singing from the orchestra and 140-member Apollo Chorus combined to produce a stunning artistic achievement. Yankovskaya made the most of Talbot’s work, allowing the colors of the choral and orchestral writing to shine through, while ensuring that the soloists were never overpowered by the sometimes-copious forces arrayed against them. There’s more going on here than simply successful conducting—in this opera especially it seems important that the individual human voice is not drowned out, even in the face of death on the impersonal slopes of the Himalayas.”
–Sam Mellins, Chicago Review

“Yankovskaya is a woman who is truly capable of revealing unspeakable musical beauty. With each COT production, Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya surprises us more and more. She combines everything clearly - drama, orchestra, text, choir, even acting and stage motion - in a clear and dramatic way. The Apollo Chorus of 140 members was an unspeakable force in this performance, contributing to its mysterious atmosphere. Bravo COT and  Yankovskaya - we eagerly await new discoveries.”
–Raimundas Marius Lapas, Draugas News

“Best Batting Average of 2019: After making an impressive Chicago Opera Theater debut with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta last year, music director Lidiya Yankovskaya continued to hit home-runs in her subsequent COT appearances, including Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick and the Everest/Aleko double-bill in November.”
–Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review

“Two years ago, when conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya signed on as music director for Chicago Opera Theater, she made her plans for the company very clear. A major goal was introducing audiences to new contemporary operas and neglected works by well-known composers. She started that process last season, conducting well-received performances of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in November 2018 and Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick last spring. Last month, Yankovskaya was on the podium at the Harris Theater to launch COT’s new season with a double bill that achieved both of her stated aims. First up was Everest, a 2015 opera by composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer about a disastrous storm in May 1996 that killed eight climbers on Mount Everest. Everest was paired with Aleko, an 1892 opera by Rachmaninoff inspired by a Pushkin poem about love, lust, and murder amid a wandering gypsy band. With a superb cast of principal singers and the expressive, 140-voice Apollo Chorus serving as a kind of Greek chorus in both operas, COT gave Everest and Aleko impressively first-class productions. The chorus and orchestra are the heart and soul of Everest. Under Yankovskaya’s passionate baton, the orchestra heaved and swirled in massive, dark waves. A huge percussion battery, plus electronic sources, filled the Harris Theater with the ominous groans of shifting ice shelves amid the luminous glow of an otherworldly celesta. The Apollo Chorus…sang with precision and emotion in music that ranged from multi-layered, barely audible rustles to heartfelt rushes of faintly dissonant melancholy. This theater’s clear, crisp acoustics are ideal for opera, and it was exciting to easily hear every last detail of Talbot’s colorful score. Yankovskaya is injecting new energy and focus to Chicago Opera Theater. Attention should be paid.”
–Wynne Delacoma, Musical America