– Lyric Opera House, Chicago

Date: Friday, 23 October 2026
Time: 19:00
Duration: 02:40
Venue: Lyric Opera House
Address: 20 N Upper Wacker Dr #400, Chicago, IL 60606, USA
City: Chicago
Organisation: Lyric Opera of Chicago
Language: English
Price range: 193 $

About this event

Kaneza Schaal’s Lyric Opera of Chicago presentation of Omar embraces an austere, highly focused staging that foregrounds the Pulitzer Prize–winning score by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. Christopher Myers’s design concept favors a stripped-back visual language, placing the music’s tapestry—interweaving West African traditions, hymns, spirituals, and bluegrass with conventional opera forces—at the center. The team includes set designer Amy Rubin, co-costume designers Micheleine Russell-Brown and April M. Hickman, lighting designer Pablo Santiago, and projection designer Josh Higgason, with many artists making their Lyric debuts. The Lyric Opera Chorus (Michael Black, chorus director) and Lyric Opera Orchestra perform under the baton of Kazem Abdullah. The production is sung in English with projected English titles, and Lyric provides accessibility offerings including an ASL-interpreted performance, audio description, and SoundShirts.