Lyric Opera of Chicago has commissioned work from two Chicago icons for its upcoming 2025/2026 season: Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame and Chicago’s first poet Laureate avery r. young. NBC 5’s LeeAnn Trotter reports.
In 1995, The Smashing Pumpkins released Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and catapulted The Smashing Pumpkins into international success.
Now, frontman Billy Corgan is teaming up with Lyric Opera of Chicago to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary. It's a prospect Corgan didn't really see coming.
"Along the way, different people have mentioned, 'Would you ever want to work with the Lyric,' and I would always say, 'Absolutely, but I don't think they would want to work with me.'"
At the time the album was produced, Corgan says the band was going through a lot of ups and downs.
"My petulant way of answering the critics of the time was to do this wide-ranging double album, and the record company completely resisted the idea. Hated the idea, said we were committing career suicide. But it became our biggest-selling work."
Corgan is quick to point out this will not be a rock concert, but a celebration of the compositional aspect of the work.
"If you come somewhere and you don't pay tribute to what is done so amazingly here, I think you almost do a disservice to what has been built here. So I want my work to translate here. I don't want it to feel like opera goes rock 'n' roll."
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The world premiere of "A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness" will be on stage at Lyric Opera House in late November.
Also, Chicago's first-ever poet laureate, avery r. young, will present his second collaboration with the Lyric in April 2026. It’s called "safronia," in which he writes and stars in. It's billed as a personal story about the Great Migration.
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"The people that will come to see 'safronia' and that have never been in this opera room," says young, "are coming because they may have never seen themselves on stage in a way they will see themselves in 'sofronia.'"
John Mangum, general director, president and CEO of Lyric Opera, says, "We are really excited to be charting the future path for opera. You can imagine all different kinds of paths, but these two paths that we are going to tread next season with avery and Billy are really thrilling and energizing for us."
Lyric's upcoming season will offer 12 more productions than last season.
