Haymarket Opera Company

Company Background: Haymarket Opera Company is a leader in the historically informed performance of 17th- and 18th-century opera and oratorio. Since 2010, Haymarket has enriched Chicago and the Midwest’s cultural landscape with vivid, period-authentic concerts and staged productions, often presenting Chicago or U.S. premieres of Baroque and Classical masterpieces. For more than 15 seasons, Haymarket has combined exceptional musical artistry with historically inspired staging, choreography, sets, and costumes. Through close collaboration with singers, instrumentalists, directors, and designers, the company brings to life the full theatrical and emotional depth of early opera. Critics have hailed Haymarket as “lovingly detailed” (The New York Times), “painstakingly authentic” (Chicago Classical Review), and “among the most impressive period-performance ensembles today” (Musical America). Opera News praised its work as “creatively staged, beautifully sung, and superbly played,” while Classical Voice North America highlighted its “legendary commitment” to historical performance.

Notable projects have included a pandemic pivot through which Haymarket reached over 800,000 households with a filmed trilogy of Handel operas. The company’s partnership with WFMT has brought its work to a global audience via the Saturday Matinee Broadcast series, heard by over one million listeners worldwide. In 2022, Haymarket premiered and recorded Joseph Bologne’s L’Amant anonyme, released on Cedille Records with support from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Fund for Vocal Recordings. Vinci’s Artaserse was released in 2026 as the company’s second Cedille release. The company’s partnership with Chicago’s legacy early-music ensemble The Newberry Consort includes a concert presentation of Peri’s Euridice, the oldest surviving opera, and a 2026 co-production of Monteverdi’s timeless masterpiece, L’Orfeo. In 2025 Haymarket made its debut at the Ravinia Festival with a semi-staged concert presentation of Handel’s Alcina starring Nicole Cabell and Elizabeth DeShong. 

Named one of the “Ten Best of the Decade” by the Chicago Sun-Times and featured in the Chicago Tribune’s “Top 10 Classical and Opera Performances,” Haymarket continues to reimagine early opera with integrity, artistry, and passion, reminding us that great art transcends time.