Lucy Tucker Yates

Los Angeles, CA

Director of Language Studies

Maestro al cembalo (Anna di Resburgo), Italian Instructor

Previously with Teatro Nuovo:

2018~2023

Bio:

In October 2023 Miss Yates was appointed Italian Diction Coach to the Lindemann Young Artist Program at the Metropolitan Opera. She was recently seen in Pauline Viardot’s Le Dernier Sorcier (The Last Sorcerer), music directing from the keyboard, at The Wallis with Sing for Hope. In 2022 she made her Lincoln Center debut as maestro al cembalo for Rossini’s Maometto Secondo with Teatro Nuovo. In 2020 she joined LA's The Industry on keyboards for Sweet Land (Du Yun/Raven Chacon) and was made a company member. In 2018 she made her conducting debut as maestro al cembalo at Seattle Opera with the "extremely inventive" O+E (Gluck/Calzabigi 1762 Orfeo ed Euridice), in an "elegantly poetic" English version she created for that production. In 2014 she made her Rossini Opera Festival debut as onstage continuo fortepianist and assistant conductor to Will Crutchfield in Mario Martone's staging of Aureliano in Palmira.

Miss Yates first drew international attention as Violetta in a 2002 Franco Zeffirelli production of La Traviata (Teatro Verdi di Busseto) and as Monica in The Medium at Spoleto under Gian Carlo Menotti's direction. Critics called her Gilda “perfect” (Piedmont), her Beatrice di Tenda “dazzling” (Fletcher), and her Fiordiligi “deliciously feminine” (Aldeburgh). She appeared as Nedda in Pagliacci at Sarasota Opera and as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Opera Company of North Carolina.

Through twenty years with Bel Canto at Caramoor and Teatro Nuovo, Miss Yates has emerged as a cogent and lyrical translator and teacher of Italian grammar and poetry. She has served as dramaturg, titlist, and coach for the New York City Opera . She has taught and coached for over a decade for dell’Arte Opera Ensemble under Christopher Fecteau. She has given master class series on the history of the Italian poetic tradition for Portland Opera and on the mechanics of Italian verse for Fort Worth Opera. She has created surtitles, often in verse, for operas from Le Nozze di Figaro to L'Amore dei Tre Re. She has also served as panelist on the beloved Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera Radio Quiz, and writer and interviewer for the Santa Fe Opera. She is a Lecturer in Opera in the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA.