Kathleen Butera has been named the new executive director of Chicago Chamber Musicians. She replaces Amy Iwano who held the same position for 18 years.

Previously Butera served as executive director of Music of the Baroque. She has also worked in positions at the Chicago, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras and teaches arts management at Columbia College.

Butera will start the position on August 1.

Sir Andrew Davis's contract as music director of the Lyric Opera has been extended through 2021.

In his first annual meeting as general director Anthony Freud informed the assembled Monday night that the Lyric Opera of Chicago has balanced its budget and signed up Sir Andrew Davis for another decade.

Speaking to the board of directors at the Four Seasons hotel, Freud stated that the company had balanced its budget of $57.4 million for the 2011-12 season, but once again had to dip into its reserve fund to do so, this time in the amount of $3.8 million. That’s less than the $4.3 million taken from the reserve the previous year but still a substantial sum.

The other numbers Freud reported Monday night all showed steady improvement from 2010-11. Ticket revenue for 2011-12 was $25 million, a $1.3 million increase from the previous year. The company also passed its projected fundraising goal with $21.1 million raised in annual contributions, $3 million more than 2010-11.

Tickets sold were 233,113 for 2011-12, 88% of capacity, a slight increase from 229,775 the previous year.

On the artistic front, music director Sir Andrew Davis’s contract, set to expire in 2014-15, was re-upped for six more seasons. “Sir Andrew’s contribution to Lyric Opera has been inestimable,” said Freud in a statement released by Lyric. “As he and I make artistic plans for the future, his ongoing commitment to our company is of fundamental importance to Lyric’s strength and success.”

“The fact that I’m committing myself so far ahead is an indication of the love I have for Lyric Opera and the pride I have in our work,” said the British conductor in a released statement.

Alexander Hanna

Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have appointed Alexander Hanna as the orchestra’s new principal bass. He succeeds Joseph Guastafeste who retired from the CSO last year after 49 years in the position.

Hanna, 26, is currently principal bass of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held since 2008, after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music.  Born in Bowling Green, Ohio, Hanna has performed with the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, as well as with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he was also a prize-winning Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.

Hanna will join the CSO June 4.

Following Riccardo Muti’s concert today at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed the highest Papal honor upon the Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director: the Knight of the Grand Cross First Class of the Order of St.Gregory the Great.

Established in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI, the Knight of the Grand Cross is one of the five orders of knighthood of the Holy See. The order is bestowed on Catholic men and women in recognition of their personal service to the Holy See and the Church, their support of the Church, and the good example set in their communities and country. 

Muti led the orchestra and chorus of the Rome Opera Friday at the Vatican’s Sala Nervi to celebrate the seventh anniversary of Pope Benedict’s Pontification. The concert, which was broadcast on radio and TV,  included Vivaldi’s Magnificat in G Minor, RV 611, with Daniela Barcellona as soloist, and the Stabat Mater and Te Deum from Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces with soloist Rosa Feola.

Riccardo Muti and the CSO will tour to China, Taiwan, Korea and Mexico in the 2012-13 season. Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Continuing the emphasis on international touring that has been an early hallmark of the Riccardo Muti era, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will make its debut in Mexico next season as well as visit Taiwan and Korea for the first time as part of an extensive Far East tour.

Muti and the CSO will perform two dates in Mexico this fall. On October 8 the orchestra will play in Guanajuato as part of the Festival Internacional Cervantino and in Mexico City October 10 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. The program will be Verdi’s Overture to Nabucco, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (Italian) and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.

The CSO’s tour in January and February 2013 will be its seventh Asian trip and the first with Muti as music director. The tour will include two concerts in Taipei, Taiwan and five stops in China (two concerts in Hong Kong as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and one each in Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin). The tour will conclude with two concerts in Seoul, South Korea at the Seoul Arts Center.

Repertoire for this tour includes Stravinsky’s Divertimento (The Fairy’s Kiss), Busoni’s Turandot Suite, Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, Verdi’s Overture to I vespri siciliani, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3.

As previously announced, the orchestra will also open the Carnegie Hall season this fall with three programs October 3-5. The repertoire will include Orff’s Carmina Burana, Wagner’s Overture to The Flying Dutchman, Franck’s Symphony in D Minor, Mason Bates’ Alternative Energy, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5, Martucci’s Notturno and Respighi’s Feste romane.

cso.org; 312-294-3000.

Astor Piazzolla's "Maria de Buenos Aires" will be presented in April 2013 by Chicago Opera Theater. Photo: Keith Ian Polakoff /Long Beach Opera

Philip Glass opera returns to Chicago after a long absence, along with Piazzolla’s only stage work and rarely performed Verdi in Chicago Opera Theater’s venturesome 2013 season. Also, for the first time in over a decade, COT’s three productions will be spread throughout the year in winter, spring and fall.

Chicago Opera Theater’s 2013 lineup, the first largely planned by incoming general director Andreas Mitisek, will open February 23 with the Chicago premiere of Philip Glass’s The Fall of the House of Usher. The new production of Glass’s 1987 setting of Edgar Allen Poe’s tale will mark the first local opera-house staging of any of the composer’s works since COT’s Akhnaten in 1999. (The Goodman Theatre presented Glass’s Galileo Galilei in 2002.) Ken Cazan, who helmed COT’s 2004 production of A Death in Venice, will direct this co-production with Mitisek’s other company, Long Beach Opera.

“My theme is the love of power and the power of love,” said Mitisek in a phone interview about the works chosen for his first COT season.

“The operas we do should not be just entertainment,” he added. “They should tell us something about ourselves, about who we are and what we do.” He notes that The Fall of the House of Usher combines “two iconic American figures,” Edgar Allen Poe and Phillip Glass with its theme of “how we choose to view reality.”

Astor Piazzolla’s “tango operita” Maria de Buenos Aires will follow, opening April 20. The provocative, politically charged staging, presented in Long Beach in January 2011, updates the tale to 1976-1983, the period of Argentina’s “Dirty War” when thousands disappeared. Mitisek conceived this production, and, as in Long Beach, will both conduct and direct.

“Piazzolla was a revolutionary in the truest sense,” says Mitisek. “He took the tango off the dance floor and gave it a new harmonic style and raw energy,” qualities manifest in what Mitisek promises will be a “thought-provoking” production.

COT’s season will close with Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco (Joan of Arc). This early Verdi work, which opens September 14, will be the final installment in COT’s “People’s Opera” initiative in which audience members select an opera to be performed.

Casting is to be announced and all productions will take place at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park.

Beyond the season’s repertoire, Mitisek quickly followed through on his promise to spread out COT’s three productions, rather than cramming them into a short spring period after the Lyric Opera season is over.

“There’s always something going on in Chicago,” he said. “It is important to increase our presence throughout the year.” He also noted that on a practical basis doing two or three productions in the spring makes for a very tight rehearsal schedule.

The company’s 2012 season opens April 14 with Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki, followed by Handel’s Teseo April 21 and Mozart’s The Magic Flute September 15.

Subscriptions are now on sale for Chicago Opera Theater’s 2013 season. Renewing subscribers can take advantage of early-bird pricing through July 31.  New subscribers receive 50% off in most sections and single tickets go on sale in January. Call 312-704-8414 or go to ChicagoOperaTheater.org.

Kirill Gerstein

Maurizio Pollini has canceled his U.S. tour for health reasons, including his May 13 Symphony Center Presents appearance.

Kirill Gerstein, winner of the 2010 Gilmore Artist Award, will replace Pollini for this date. Gerstein who made an acclaimed Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut in 2010, will perform Bach’s English Suite No. 6, Schumann’s Carnaval, Weber’s Invitation to the Dance and works by Busoni and Liszt. The program will also include Brad Mehldau’s Variations on a Melancholy Theme, commissioned by Gerstein.

312-294-3000; cso.org.

The Takács Quartet opens the University of Chicago Presents season on October 5.

The University of Chicago Presents series will once again serve up a first-class array of guest artists in the 2012-13 season, Many of next season’s events will take place at the new performance venue, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, which officially debuts this fall, as well as the series’ traditional home at Mandel Hall.

The 67^th season of UC Presents will open Oct. 5 with the acclaimed Takács Quartet performing music of Haydn, Britten and Dvorak. On Nov. l6 Chicago Symphony Orchestra clarinetist John Bruce Yeh will team up with violinist Cho-Liang Lin, harpist Deborah Hoffman and cellist Joshua Roman in a program including works of Ibert, Saint-Saens and John Williams.

The young string quartet Brooklyn Rider will make their series debut Jan. 25 and cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Kirill Gerstein team up for a recital Feb. 1. The Kalichstein Laredo Robinson Trio performs music of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Andre Previn Feb. 22 and the Pavel Haas Quartet will appear April 12. All the above events in the main Classical Concert Series will take place at Mandel Hall.

The Howard Mayer Brown International Early Music Series will present three events next season. The Dutch vocal ensemble Capella Pratensis will debut in a program centered on Jacob Obrecht and the city of Bruges Nov. 9 at Rockefeller Chapel; harpsichordist Kristian Bezuidenhout performs at the Logan Center Feb. 8, and trumpeter Alison Balcom and the Scottish Ensemble will also come to the Logan Center April 19.

The Pacifica Quartet, artists in residence at the University of Chicago, will perform three Sunday matinee concerts at the Logan Center Nov. 4, Feb. 17 and April 7. All five Contempo events will also take place at the new venue including a tribute to Ralph Shapey on March 1.

Non-classical events include the crossover Turtle Island Quartet Oct. 14 and the SFJazz Collective Oct. 19.

Subscriptions go on sale April 16, with single tickets on sale September 4. chicagopresents.uchicago.edu; 773-702-8068.

Jane Glover will open Music of the Baroque's 42nd season Oct. 5 with Haydn's "Lord Nelson" mass at the Harris Theater.

Music of the Baroque’s 2012-13 season will mark Jane Glover’s tenth anniversary as music director with a lineup devoted entirely to works of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart.

The ensemble’s 42nd season will also pare back its expansion of two years ago, returning to seven programs instead of the current eight.

Executive director Karen Fishman said that while MOB’s subscription roster grew again this season, single ticket sales and fundraising results are still feeling the effects of the prolonged economic downturn.  Further, “as MOB production costs will rise with our move to new north venues at the same time that we wanted to program several larger works, we decided to go back, at least temporarily, to seven programs,” said Fishman.

This is MOB’s final season at First United Methodist Church, its Evanston home for more than four decades. Next season the ensemble will split its northern series between Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts and First Presbyterian Church in Evanston.

The season will open October 5 at the Harris Theater with Glover leading the orchestra and chorus in Haydn’s Lord Nelson mass. Susanna Phillips will be the soprano soloist and Mozart’s Prague Symphony (No. 38) will be on the first half.

Glover will also conduct Bach’s St. John Passion in May and Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt in April. She will be on the podium for an all-Mozart program in January as well, featuring the Symphony No. 39, Piano Concerto No. 24 and two concert arias. Piano and vocal soloists are yet to be announced.

Principal guest conductor Nicholas Kraemer leads just two programs next season. The ensemble’s principal guest conductor will direct an all-Bach program in November featuring concertmaster Robert Waters as soloist in the Violin Concerto No. 2. And in February, Kraemer will conduct Handel’s complete Water Music, flanked by two Haydn symphonies (Nos. 64 and 97).

MOB chorus director William Jon Gray will once again conduct the ensemble’s popular holiday programs in December.

For further information, call 312-551-1414 or go to baroque.org.

Danielle de Niese will star in "Bel Canto," which will be premiered at Lyric Opera in 2015.

UPDATED
The opera that Renée Fleming, the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s creative consultant, has chosen for the company’s new commission is a tale of terrorism and intrigue with an American opera star as the central character, a figure widely believed to be based upon Fleming herself.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Tuesday that its newly commissioned opera would be Bel Canto, an adaptation of the novel by Ann Patchett, which will have its world premiere in the 2015-16 season.

The composer will be Jimmy Lopez, a 33-year-old Pervuvian and the librettist will be Nilo Cruz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban-American playwright of Anna in the Tropics. This will be Lopez’s first opera.

Danielle de Niese will star as Roxanne Coss, the star soprano who is among a group of hostages captured by a band of Peruvian terrorists. Sir Andrew Davis will conduct and Stephen Wadsworth will direct and oversee the progress of the project.

In material prepared by Lyric Opera for Tuesday’s announcement Fleming said that Bel Canto was always intended as the source material for the new opera, which she was tasked with curating. In her friend Patchett’s tale of disparate hostages throw together by political events, Fleming said what appealed to her most was that Pachett “creates a utopian society based on the power of music and the sense of community it creates,” and that the scenario presents “a cathartic emotional experience” well suited to an operatic treatment.

Jimmy Lopez

Lopez has never written an opera before nor has he composed anything for voice apart from a few short works. In the Lyric’s prepared material Sir Andrew Davis said the fact that Lopez is Peruvian was part of the decision for choosing him as well as Lopez’s potential for handling this project. “Both Renée and I also were touched by a beautiful piece we heard for voice and piano,” stated Davis. “Even though he hasn’t written a lot of vocal music, we feel he has a natural instinct for writing for the voice, and that he will do some interesting and beautiful work.”

Patchett’s novel was inspired by an actual incident in Lima, Peru. In 1996 the Marxist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement stormed the house of the Japanese ambassador during a party and took 700 hostages, releasing all but 72. The siege lasted for four months until Pervuvian military stormed the house, killing all 14 guerillas and rescuing all but one of the remaining hostages.

The announcement was made Tuesday afternoon at the Civic Opera House with Fleming, Davis, Lopez, Cruz, Wadsworth and general director Anthony Freud presiding.

The formal press conference with general director Freud acting as moderator was less tightly scripted than recent Lyric announcements, and the better for it. Padgett, in particular, provided amusingly off-message remarks saying that she had freely plagiarized Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain for her novel’s scenario and that previous unsuccessful attempts to turn Bel Canto into an opera or musical had been “cursed.”

Fleming elaborated on why she and Davis chose Lopez for the commission, stating that there were two major criteria: having a “creative voice” and “craft.” She also said that she wanted to find someone who could “write convincingly in a vernacular that would say ‘South America’ to us.”

Davis added that even though Lopez to date has published very few works for voice, his versatility and handling of the orchestra would stand him in good stead. “When you’re writing an opera, you need to have all sorts of colors in your palette.”

As a teenager growing up in Peru, Lopez recalled that he had watched the months-long saga unfold on television and that it had a large impact on him and the rest of his country. He also noted that the event marked the effective “death of terrorism” in Peru.

Lopez said as a composer it’s essential that his music make an immediate appeal. “I try to make the music as engaging as possible,” said Lopez. “If I’m bored for a minute, I go back and change things.”

One “tricky” structural issue that Lopez and Cruz are already wrestling with is how to reflect the international flavor of the story’s hostages (Japanese, American, Peruvian and Russian) in a way that respects the original languages without becoming dramatically and musically awkward. While the terrorists will speak and sing in Spanish, finding a workable style for the hostages “is extremely challenging and we’re trying to find creative solutions to that,” Lopez said.

While this is his first opera libretto, Cruz seems a natural fit with his singular style of heightened language and poetic imagery. “I come from a very musical country,” said the Cuba-born playwright. “Basically we are born singing and dancing.”

Bel Canto is the Lyric Opera’s seventh commission and the first at the company since William Bolcom’s A Wedding, which premiered in 2004. The premiere will take place in December 2015.