Anthony Freud is departing Lyric Opera of Chicago on good terms, despite the company’s struggles in a tense atmosphere for the performing arts.
Still in his teens, he waited in line for hours to attend a concert version of Benjamin Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes” at the BBC Proms in London. For the Proms, seats are removed from the Royal Albert Hall to make way for a large standing area, and Freud found himself jammed against the stage, just a few feet from tenor Jon Vickers, who performed a crushingly fierce Grime.Anthony Freud is departing Lyric Opera of Chicago on good terms, despite the company’s struggles in a tense atmosphere for the performing arts.
“This is what I want to spend my life doing,” he said, recalling the show fondly in a recent interview. “I want to be a missionary for opera.”Anthony Freud is departing Lyric Opera of Chicago on good terms, despite the company’s struggles in a tense atmosphere for the performing arts.
Last Sunday, Freud, 66, was as close to the opera stage as he could go. Freud sat in the front row, left aisle, for a matinee of Verdi’s “Aida,” the final complete performance of his 13-year term as general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago.
On opening nights, he normally sat in the theater’s traditional general director position. But “it seemed right to be in that seat today,” he said during intermission, as he walked upstairs to greet benefactors.
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