Monday, April 27, 2026, at 7:00
JOYCE DIDONATO MASTERCLASS
Joyce DiDonato CSO Artist-in-Residence and Mezzo-soprano
Artists from The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Alexis Peart Mezzo-soprano
Sihao Hu Baritone
Benjamin R. Sokol Bass-baritone
Michael Banwarth Piano
Program to be announced from the stage.
There will be no intermission.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Artist-in-Residence position, held by Joyce DiDonato, is made possible through a generous gift from James and Brenda Grusecki.
JUNE 1
Civic & Ryan Opera Center
Erina Yashima leads members of the Ryan Opera Center and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in an evening of opera arias, scenes, and orchestral favorites.
CSO.ORG/CIVIC
Joyce DiDonato
CSO Artist-in-Residence and Mezzo-soprano
Winner of multiple Grammy awards and a 2018 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato has soared to the top of the industry as a performer, producer, and fierce advocate for the arts.
Recent highlights include Handel’s Theodora for the Teatro Real in Madrid and an acclaimed European recital tour. She continued her celebrated musical partnership with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and a spring residency at the Konzerthaus Dortmund featured the world premiere of Rachel Portman’s song cycle Another Eve
DiDonato’s varied 2025–26 season commenced with season-opening concerts with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, as well as the reopening of Powell Hall with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’s House of Tomorrow. She returned to Musikkollegium Winterthur for Another Eve and collaborated with Radio France for Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder in Paris and Dijon. She also reunited with pianist Craig Terry for recitals at Théâtre de Genève and Suntory Hall in Tokyo and embarks on her first major tour of Australia with the Melbourne, Tasmanian, and New Zealand symphony orchestras. DiDonato made her Lincoln Center Theater stage debut as the mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the
Night Visitors and her much-anticipated role debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Saariaho’s Innocence. Concert appearances include Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Symphony no. 3 with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of NézetSéguin. The artist maintains her annual masterclass series at Carnegie Hall in New York and tours her album SongPlay throughout Asia. She also joins the Met Orchestra for her second European tour with Nézet-Séguin following a performance of Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 at Carnegie Hall.
Her latest global touring project, EDEN, completed a groundbreaking three years with tours in Asia, South America, the United States, and Europe. A newly commissioned song cycle by Kevin Puts, Emily—No Prisoner Be, for her and the Grammy Award–winning string trio Time for Three, had its world premiere at the Bregenz Festival in August 2025.
Her expansive discography includes Berlioz’s Les Troyens (Gramophone’s Recording of the Year) and Handel’s Agrippina (Gramophone’s Opera Recording of the Year). Other albums include the singular EDEN, spanning four centuries of music; Schubert’s Winterreise with Nézet-Séguin; and the Grammy-winning SongPlay, Diva Divo, and Drama Queens. Other honors include her inaugural induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame, receiving the Fourteenth Concertgebouw Prize in September 2024, and being named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic.
Joyce DiDonato is the CSO Artist-inResidence for the 2025–26 season, made possible through a generous gift from James and Brenda Grusecki.
PHOTO © BY CHRIS GONZ
Alexis Peart Mezzo-soprano
A first-year Ryan Opera Center mezzo-soprano from Titusville, New Jersey, Alexis Peart appeared at Lyric this season as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and in El último sueño de Frida y Diego A former Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist with Boston Lyric Opera, she appeared there in Mitridate, re di Ponto, The Seasons, Noah’s Flood, La cenerentola, and Eurydice, as well as in the company’s educational touring productions. Other recent roles include Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Jo in Little Women, Ruggiero in Alcina, Taller Daughter in Proving Up, the title role in Giulio Cesare, Der Trommler in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, and Ada Lovelace in the world premiere workshop of Ruehr’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. The mezzo can be heard on Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera’s Grammy-nominated recording of Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and on several art song releases by PARMA Recordings. An Encouragement Award winner in the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition New England Region and recipient of second prize in the 2026 Musicians Club of Women Competition, Peart is a two-time alumna of the Wolf Trap Opera Studio and has worked with the Princeton Festival, Chautauqua Opera Company (Studio Artist), Rochester Oratorio Society, Guerilla Opera, and Castle of Our Skins.
Sihao Hu Baritone
Sihao Hu, a first-year Ryan Opera Center baritone from Shenzhen, China, studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. This season at Lyric, he appeared in Salome and Madama Butterfly. Hu participated in more than fifty performances across his homeland as well as abroad throughout his undergraduate studies. Highlights of his operatic experience include creating the title role of Tang Xian Zu for its world premiere in 2017 and reprising it at the Sydney Opera House, the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, Czech Republic. Other roles in his repertoire include Ping in Turandot, Silvio in Pagliacci, Barmann in Falscher Verrat, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Chorèbe in Les Troyens, Germont in La traviata, the title role in Don Giovanni, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, and Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro. Formerly an artist at Theater Kiel in Germany, Hu participated in the 2024 Merola Opera Program in San Francisco. In 2019, he won the Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music, the only standing music-related comprehensive award in China.
Benjamin R. Sokol
Bass-baritone
Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Benjamin R. Sokol is a first-year Ryan Opera Center bass-baritone. This season at Lyric he appeared in Salome and El último sueño de Frida y Diego. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degrees in classical voice at the Manhattan School of Music. Sokol has won many competitions and received numerous awards, most recently first prize in the 2026 D’Angelo Young Artist Vocal Competition at Opera Tampa, first prize in the 2025 Eisenberg-Fried Concerto Competition, semi-finalist in the 2025 George and Nora London Foundation Competition, and a grant from the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. He has previously participated in the artist-development programs at San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera (Commendatore in Don Giovanni), Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory (Betto di Signa in Gianni Schicchi and L’Arbre in L’enfant et les sortilèges), and the Taos Opera Institute. He has also been with the Milnes VOICE Programs for several years, participating in the Florida VOICE Project and Milnes VOICE Studio and performing at the Savannah VOICE Festival. Other roles in his repertoire include Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Vodnik in Rusalka, Badger in The Cunning Little Vixen, Sarastro and Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte, Wagner in Faust, Sparafucile and Monterone in Rigoletto, and Orest in Elektra.
Michael Banwarth, a third-year pianist with the Ryan Opera Center from Dubuque, Iowa, served on Lyric’s music staff for Blue (2024–25) and Champion (2023–24), and this season he helped prepare the company’s productions of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. Banwarth recently completed a master’s degree in collaborative piano at the New England Conservatory of Music. A recipient of the Dean’s Scholarship and Gunther Schuller Medal at NEC, he was a teaching assistant for the Song Lab program, performed frequently in the Liederabend and Sonata Night concert series, and prepared productions of The Turn of the Screw and L’enfant et les sortilèges. Banwarth was a staff pianist for the 2025 Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, Germany (returning in 2026), and a 2022 vocal piano fellow at Music Academy of the West. He has also held fellowships at the Bay View Music Festival and the Atlantic Music Festival, and served as assistant music director and harpsichordist for the Iowa State Opera Studio during his undergraduate studies. Chicago engagements include two recitals for the Dame Myra Hess series.
Michael Banwarth Piano
PHOTOS BY TODD ROSENBERG
