Longtime marketing chief to leave Lyric Opera

Wed Jun 26, 2013 at 4:30 pm

By Lawrence A. Johnson

Susan Mathieson Mayer

After a quarter-century running the marketing department at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Susan Mathieson Mayer will depart the company at the end of 2013.

“It is an honor to work for this great company,” Mathieson Mayer said in a statement released by Lyric. “However, I now want flexibility in my professional career so that I can spend more time with my husband, Friedrich Mayer, who is retired.”

Mathieson Mayer will continue working with Lyric as a consultant on media-related and marketing projects, as well as doing freelance marketing consulting for a variety of organizations.

After she joined Lyric as director of marketing and communications in 1988, the company completely sold out the season for sixteen consecutive years through 2004-2005.

“Susan has earned an international reputation for arts marketing and is widely acknowledged as one of the leading practitioners in the field today,” said Lyric general director Anthony Freud. “She has made a major contribution to the company during her tenure, and will be greatly missed by her colleagues, Lyric’s Board of Directors, and the artists.”

Freud said that the appointment process to recruit a successor is underway and an announcement is expected within weeks.

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