The Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced Tuesday that music director Riccardo Muti has extended the terms of CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne for two more seasons.

“As I have studied their work, I am impressed with what they have created,” said Muti in a statement released by the CSO. “They each have a unique voice, and I am very proud that we have brought such fine young composers to Chicago. I am happy that they will stay with us for two additional years.”

Bates and Clyne both have commissioned works receiving their premieres by Muti and the orchestra this month. On Thursday, Bates’ Alternative Energy will have its debut and Clyne’s Night Ferry will be premiered on February 9. Muti and the CSO will take both works on their California tour later this month.

Anna Netrebko will make her Lyric Opera debut as Mimi in Puccini's "La Boheme" in March 2013.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 58th season will bring a varied and well-balanced lineup featuring Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Massenet’s Werther, a double shot of Verdi and populist crowd-pleasers by Puccini and Donizetti.

Celebrated Russian soprano Anna Netrebko will make her belated company debut as Mimi in Puccini’s La Boheme and Renee Fleming (Lyric’s creative consultant) will star in the previously announced performances of Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Sir Andrew Davis will conduct the first three productions as well as the Meistersinger.

The season will open Oct. 6 with Strauss’s Elektra. Soprano Christine Goerke will make her Lyric debut in the vengeful title role of the Sophocles-inspired drama with Jill Grove as Clytemnestra, Roger Honeywell as Aegithus and Emily Magee as Chrysothemis in a new production by David McVicar.

Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra follows Oct. 15, with Thomas Hampson as the conflicted Italian ruler. Ferruccio Furlanetto, an acclaimed Boris Godunov last fall, will return as Fiesco and Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova (Desdemona in Riccardo Muti’s CSO Otello performances in 2011) will make her debut as Amelia with Frank Lopardo and Quinn Kelsey rounding out the cast in a Royal Opera House production.

Massenet will return to the Lyric stage Nov. 11 after a long absence with Werther, its first Lyric staging in three decades. Matthew Polenzani will star as the manic-depressive title poet with French mezzo Sophie Koch making her house debut as Charlotte. Craig Verm portrays Albert and Kiri Deonarine is Sophie. The controversial staging by Francisco Negrin is a coproduction with San Francisco Opera, where it debuted in 2010.

Marlis Petersen, an unforgettable Lulu here in 2008, will return in a much lighter role as Norina in Don Pasquale, opening Nov. 25. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo will star in the title role of Donizetti’s frothy comedy with Corey Crider as Malatesta and Rene Barbera as Ernesto. Stephen Lord will conduct and baritone Sir Thomas Allen (a notable Malatesta in his day) will make his Lyric directorial debut.

The Lyric will offer subversive holiday fare with a revival of its revisionist take on Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (Dec. 7-Jan. 19, 2012). Elizabeth DeShong and Maria Kanyova star as the ravenous siblings in the darkly Freudian Sir Richard Jones production with Jill Grove as the witch and Julie Makerov and Brian Mulligan as the parents. Conductor Ward Stare will make his Lyric podium debut.

The Lyric’s double-cast Boheme follows, alternating Ana Maria Martinez and Dmitri Pittas (Jan. 21-Feb. 7) with Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja (March 9-28).  The company is using the celebrated Netrebko’s debut as a clever marketing tool, with her performances available only to subscribers. Elizabeth Futral is Musetta with Lucas Meachem as Marcello in a San Francisco Opera production new to Chicago. Emmanuel Villaume will conduct.

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg opens Feb. 8. James Morris stars as Hans Sachs with Dimitry Ivashchenko as Pogner, Bo Skovhus as Beckmesser, Johan Botha (Lohengrin in 2011) as Walther and Amanda Majeski as Eva. Davis will conduct in a David McVicar production from Glyndebourne.

Verdi’s Rigoletto will return to the Lyric  boards Feb. 25 with Andrzej Dobber and Zeljko Lucic alternating in the tite role of the malign hunchback. Albina Shagimuratova will make her Lyric debut as Gilda with Giuseppe Filianoti returning as the Duke of Mantua, Andrea Silvestrelli as Sparafucile, and Evan Rogister conducting.

The season will close with a ninth opera bonus on top of the Lyric’s usual eight productions. A Streetcar Named Desire opens for four semi-staged concert performances on March 26 with Fleming starring as Blanche DuBois in a role created for her. Susanna Phillips portrays Stella with Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Lyric debut) as Stanley and Anthony Dean Griffey reprising the role of Mitch, which he created. Rogister will conduct. As with Netrebko’s dates, the Streetcar performances are only available via subscription.

The 2013 subscriber appreciation concert will feature Fleming and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham on Jan. 24.

The season was announced Tuesday afternoon at a press conference by general director Anthony Freud and Sir Andrew Davis with Renee Fleming participating via Skype. Freud stressed the desire of the company to reach new audiences and a broader range of people with some retooling of prices and innovative subscription series.

For instance, in several series Lyric subscribers can save up to 40% over single-ticket prices in selected seating areas. In addition balcony prices have been frozen and some main-floor seats reduced.  Also the Lyric is offering reduced children’s prices for all Hansel and Gretel performances. Call 312-332-2244 or go to lyricopera.org.

Vadim Gluzman

The North Shore Chamber Music Festival will be joined by the Pacifica String Quartet for its second season of concerts in June.

Founded last year by violinist Vadim Gluzman and pianist Angela Yoffe, the 2012 installment of the summer festival will also feature pianist Adam Neiman, cellist Mark Kosower, clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein and soprano Hyunah Yu.

The opening concert on June 6 will offer Mendelssohn’s Octet, Beethoven’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, Bartok’s Rhapsody No. 1 for violin, and Alan Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull with Henry Fogel as narrator.

The June 8 program includes Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Schnittke’s Moz-Art for two violins, Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 and Schubert’s song The Shepherd on the Rock.

The festival will close June 9 with Franck’s Piano Quintet, Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat, Golijov’s Tenebrae and a selection of Piazzolla tangos.

All performances take place at The Village Church in Northbrook. Individual tickets are $20-$40 with three-concert packages $45-$95. Student tickets are $10 and seniors receive a 20% discount.

Go to nscmf.org or call 847-370-3984

In addition to reserved seating in the Pritzker Pavilion for all festival concerts, members receive discounts at area restaurants and on festival merchandise as well as discounted parking at Millennium Park garages. Memberships range from $75 to $1500 with top Circle Level members also receiving guest passes and invitations to Lurie Garden tours and previews.

The 2012 summer season will mark the 50th anniversary of the Grant Park Chorus with newly commissioned works by Michael Gandolfi and Sebastian Currier. Program details for the festival will be announced next month.

Call 312-742-7647 or go online to grantparkmusicfestival.com.

Anthony Freud

Lyric Opera of Chicago general director Anthony Freud provided more details Monday about the company’s hiring of Renée Fleming’s press manager, Alexandra Day. The announcement, released late Friday afternoon, that Day would be appointed to the new position of director of public relations in the Lyric’s marketing department, created an internet stir over the weekend on opera websites.

In e-mailed responses to questions submitted Friday, Freud said that Day would cease her employment with Fleming, the opera company’s creative consultant, once she begins working at Lyric in February.

“Alexandra Day will conclude her services as director of communications and business development for Renee Fleming in January before moving to Chicago and assuming her new responsibilities at Lyric in February,” wrote Freud.

The Lyric’s new chief also said that he does not see any potential for conflicts of interest or divided loyalties in having the former media representative of a celebrated, still-performing singer taking a leading role in the Lyric’s press office.

“Ms. Day’s three years’ experience working closely with Ms. Fleming, and the extensive international media contacts she has developed in that capacity and in her previous work at the Metropolitan Opera, are great assets to Lyric in general, and in publicizing the many facets of the Renee Fleming Initiative as they come to fruition,” wrote Freud. “As a member of Lyric’s full-time staff Ms. Day will manage and promote several projects separate from the Fleming Initiative in addition to her work associated with that initiative.

“I have full confidence in our expanded team’s ability to work together in the best interests of Lyric Opera, in order to make one of the outstanding opera companies of the world even better.”

Alexandra Day

The Lyric Opera of Chicago announced late Friday that Alexandra Day has been appointed to the newly created position of director of public relations. Day currently serves as personal manager and press representative for Renée Fleming, who was appointed as the company’s creative consultant a year ago.

The press release, sent out at 4:48 p.m., says that Day will report to Susan Mathieson Mayer, Lyric’s director of communications, and will work with Mathieson Mayer and director of marketing Philip Koester to “plan and execute a wide variety of public relations and marketing projects aimed at expanding Lyric’s profile in the local, national, and international media.”

Day will also “manage and promote numerous special projects to broaden the visibility of Lyric Opera . . . cultivate partnerships with cultural and civic organizations in Chicago” and “serve as a key liaison to Fleming, working to promote audience-development programs supported by Lyric as part of the Renée Fleming Initiative.”

“We’re delighted to have Alex Day join our team,” said Mathieson Mayer in a released statement. “We have worked together closely to launch and implement the Renée Fleming Initiative; her experience and energy will be a tremendous asset in fostering Lyric’s continued growth and new endeavors.”

While the hiring of Day clearly consolidates Fleming’s position within the company’s infrastructure as creative consultant, the appointment of the friend and manager of an actively performing high-profile singer raises potentially troubling conflict-of-interest issues.

Will Day be an honest broker for all of the press or play favorites, limiting access to select outlets, as was the case with Fleming’s master class at the Merit School last month? Will she work for the greater good of the Lyric Opera as an institution and put that above her managerial interest in promoting her celebrated star client? And where will her loyalties lie if something is good for Fleming but bad for Lyric Opera and vice versa?

The release did not indicate whether Day would continue to serve as Fleming’s manager in addition to her new position at the Lyric Opera. There was no response to questions on the appointment submitted to general director Anthony Freud through the Lyric press office.

Andreas Mitisek will succeed Brian Dickie as general director of Chicago Opera Theater in 2012.

If there were fears that Chicago Opera Theater would go artistically conservative in its selection of a new general director to succeed Brian Dickie, think again.

Andreas Mitisek, artistic and general director of Long Beach Opera, has presented Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice in a 500,000-gallon swimming pool; staged a double bill of Viktor Ullman’s The Emperor of Atlantis and Carl Orff’s Die Kluge in the engine rooms of the shuttered Queen Mary; and just this past year staged, produced and conducted Cherubini’s Medea in a furniture warehouse.

Mitisek, 49, will come to Chicago Opera Theater as interim general director Jan. 1, 2012 to help plan the 2013 and future seasons. He will officially succeed Dickie as general director on September 1, with a five-year contract through 2017. He will also maintain his post in Long Beach.

“This is a great opportunity and I’m looking forward to having a lot of fun and creating some excitement,” said the Vienna-born conductor and administrator, who will be formally introduced in Chicago at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“What I’m really looking forward to is pushing the envelope and making what we do relevant to people. I want people to be affected by what we do. They might not like it or they might love it but we need to create a reaction in our audience that goes beyond ‘What will we have for dinner after?’”

“We chose Andreas to be the next General Director due to his original and unique artistic vision which builds upon the incredibly high standard set by Brian,” said COT board president Gregory O’Leary in a released statement.  “The Search Committee, as well as the Board and I, are extremely enthusiastic about the future of the company under Andreas’ direction.”

While it’s unlikely that Mitisek will continue Dickie’s singular mix of modern-dress early and Baroque opera and Benjamin Britten, Dickie’s programming of 20th- and 21st-century works will continue and likely be expanded, if the ambitious Austrian has his way.

The 2012 Long Beach season serves up a bracing lineup, offering Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires, Golijov’s Ainadamar, Michael Nyman’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and a double bill of Poulenc’s The Breasts of Tiresias and Martinu’s Tears of a Knife.

Mitisek has also forged collaborative partnerships with other Southern California arts organizations. Such efforts include presenting a Philip Glass festival earlier this year with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, a newly-conceived production of The Ring Of The Nibelung in 2006, and conducting, staging and designing the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten.

Clearly in addition to his innovative approach to repertoire, it is Mitisek’s success at audience building and garnering financial support that attracted him to the COT board. “The main challenge is putting the company on a firm financial footing,” said Mitisek. “I’m ready to dive in and help to build support and make sure the company is on the same financial and artistic level.”

Mitisek became Long Beach Opera’s principal conductor in 1998 and artistic and general director in 2003. Over his tenure the California company has more than doubled its budget (from $434,00 to $1.2 million), eliminated a longstanding deficit and raised subscriptions by 500%.

“I came to Long Beach in 2003 and we had a deficit of about $100,000 with a budget of $430,000. We had no real functional structure or staff existing. It was a great company artistically but everything surrounding it was lacking.”

He envisons a similar approach to that he took in California. “I think the way to turn it around is to create a group of friends and do a lot of fund-raising. Meeting with the community, I think there is a lot of great opportunities for COT to build its core group of supporters. There’s an amazing amount of people already here and we have to build on that support.”

The versatile Mitisek says Chicago audiences can expect much innovation, and more contemporary works and enveleope-pushing productions, as has been the case in Long Beach.

“I think there is a lot of great American opera and a lot of great contemporary opera being written and then never performed again,” says Mitisek. “I don’t discriminate opera based on age. To me, it has to have quality and be musically interesting and theatrically interesting to make a good case for being performed.

“We could program operas for the next ten years that are just as interesting as Traviata or Butterfly, and that nobody has ever seen,” says Mitisek. “Having the courage to provide that is one of the great things–to get more people to discover [new opera] and support it.”

Indeed, he is already talking to a composer about a commissioned opera he would like to see performed in Chicago as well as Long Beach.

One part of COT he would like to reconsider is COT’s calendar and history of presenting its entire season in the spring (though in 2012, one of the three operas, The Magic Flute, is being done in the fall). “It might be wise to revisit that and see if it’s good to have two operas at the same time,” he said. “Or if it might be beneficial to spread it out a little bit more, which also increases the company’s presence in the community. I would look into that and see if we can place our productions a little more strategically.”

One thing Mitisek is adamant about is expanding COT’s number of productions. “I see COT going to five productions in the future,” said Mitisek. “I think the potential is there and the support in the community is there.”

Mitisek says he would also like to do the same kind of outre site-specific performances in Chicago as he has done in Long Beach but perhaps not in his first season. “I would like to start building slowly and organically and find out what is the best way to branch out and find new ways to do things in Chicago.”’

He also sees a great opportunity for collaboration — as well as cost-savings — in a close relationship  between Long Beach Opera and Chicago Opera Theater in terms of co-producing and sharing productions and resources.

“Looking at the repertoire there’s a great synergy in philosophy and mission,” he said. “It’s much easier to build an artistic alliance with these two companies. For instance if you’re thinking of directors and designers, it might be more interesting for these people to be represented in two different fronts of the country, rather than just three performances in Chicago or Long Beach. That should appeal to participating artists.”

While Mitisek has been equally prominent as conductor as well as administrator in Long Beach, in the near term he plans to concentrate on running COT as general director and righting its financial ship, and leaving the conducting to others.

“Long Beach and Chicago are different places and while a lot of things make sense in both, some things maybe make sense in one,” Mitisek says. “I probably will eventually do one or the other, but it’s not like I will replicate my presence exactly the same as there.”

From 1990-1997 Mitisek served as founding and artistic director of the Wiener Operntheater (WOT) in his hometown of Vienna. He conducted premieres of 20th century and rarely seen works including John Adams’ Nixon in China, György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Harry Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs Kong, Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, Krzysztof Penderecki’s The Devils of Loudun, and Aribert Reimann’s Das Schloss. 

Mitisek plans to live in Chicago as well as maintain his current residence in Long Beach. “I appreciate the rich culture in Chicago and, being from Vienna, I like the changes of the season. I’m missing my snow! It’s also important to be in the community to help build that relationship.”

Audrey Luna

Kathleen Kim has taken herself out of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s upcoming production of The Magic Flute, stating that she has removed the role of the Queen of the Night from her repertoire, the company said late Monday.

Audrey Luna will take her place and sing the villainess role in all performances of the Lyric Opera’s Mozart revival.

“We are delighted that the gifted American soprano Audrey Luna, who has extensive experience as the Queen of the Night, is available to sing this thrilling and demanding role for all regular-season performances and also for the student matinees,” said general director Anthony Freud in a statement released by the company.

In The Classical Review account of her performance of Pamina’s villainous mother at Santa Fe Opera in 2010, Luna started the evening cautiously but delivered her second aria “with more security and great panache.”

The Magic Flute opens Dec. 6. lyricopera.org; 312-332-2244.

The deficit of $927,000 represents a 1.4% loss on an annual budget with operating expenses of $64.7 million. Last year the CSO reported a small surplus of $41,000.

Artist cancellations, including Muti’s five weeks of missed concerts due to illnesses in October and February, accounted for a large part of that expense, indicated CSO Association president Deborah Rutter, due to lost ticket revenue and artist replacement costs.

The CSO also had an “unprecedented’ number of other artists bowing out last season, most notably the Cleveland Orchestra’s cancellation due to the record blizzard in February, which led to extensive ticket refunds. Also the significant overhead and expense of Muti’s free welcoming concerts in Millennium Park and Pilsen put a further strain on last season’s balance sheet.

Still, Rutter and board chairman William. A. Osborn emphasized the positive in their released statements.

The CSO raised a record $24.2 million in contributions, a 15% increase over 2010. Ticket revenue was $20.6 million for 163 CSO concerts and 53 Symphony Center Presents events. And though subscription sales rose only 1% in Muti’s inaugural season, there was a 17% increase in single tickets sold, setting a new record of $4.8 million. The CSO sold 84% of capacity for its main subscription series.

Read more about the CSO’s 2011 Annual Meeting and fiscal year financials at http://cso.org/About/PressRoom/PressReleases.aspx

Frank Peter Zimmermann

Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann has withdrawn from this week’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts due to illness.

The program, to be conducted by Bernard Haitink, will replace the scheduled Berg Violin Concerto with Schubert’s Symphony No. 5. The performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with soprano Klara Ek are unaffected. cso.org; 312-294-3000.