Alphabetic-L Encyclopedia of Chicago UC-Enc-v.cls May , : LYRIC OPERA Further reading: Andreas, A. T. History of Cook At Krainik’s death in January she was W W I, and after a long lull, resumed County Illinois. • Benedetti, Rose Marie. Village succeeded by William Mason, the company’s in the decades after W W II. In the first on the River, –. • Lyons Diamond Ju- director of operations, artistic and produc- stage, thousands of Macedonians left the Old bilee, –. tion. As the Lyric entered the early twenty-first Country in the wake of the bloody Ilin- century, it remained internationally respected den Uprising against Ottoman control, which Lyric Opera. From to ,seven as a theater of high performance standards rest- ended with the ruin of some villages and companies—several merely different ing on an enviably secure financial base. exposed many Macedonian men to conscrip- names for the same reorganized company— John von Rhein tion in the Ottoman army. The rest came as presented seasons at Chicago’sA male labor migrants who sought to improve See also: Classical Music; Entertaining Chicagoans T and the Civic Opera House. All their families’ grim economic fortunes by re- Further reading: Cassidy, Claudia. Lyric Opera of turning home with earnings from American sunk in a sea of debt. From to the Chicago. • Davis, R. Opera in Chicago. city had no resident opera company. Three factories. After World War I, with their home people changed everything: Carol Fox, a stu- country divided between Bulgaria, Serbia, and dent singer; Lawrence Kelly, a businessman; Greece, the thousands of Chicago-area Mace- and Nicola Rescigno, a conductor and vocal donians recognized that they would not re- teacher. With money from friends and Fox’s turn to Europe. Reluctantly, wives and chil- father, the three formed the Lyric Theatre of dren joined their husbands and fathers, laying Chicago in . Their plan was to restore the groundwork for stable Macedonian com- the city to the front ranks of international munities in North America. opera companies by building a roster of Eu- Prior to the creation of a Macedonian ropean singers whom the Metropolitan and republic in , most Macedonian immi- San Francisco operas had overlooked or ig- grants viewed themselves as ethnically B- nored. On February , , the Lyric The- M and often referred to themselves as MacArthur Foundation. The John D. and ater presented its “calling card,” a starry per- Macedonian-Bulgarians or simply Bulgarians. Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation was cre- formance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the While immigration records failed to list Mace- ated in through the bequest of John Civic Opera House. The success of that pro- donians as a separate category, approximately D. MacArthur, a Pennsylvania native who duction made possible a three-week season three-quarters of those listed as Bulgarians amassed a great fortune in the busi- in autumn of consisting of perfor- were from the regions of Kostur and Bitola ness and in real-estate investments in Florida. mances of operas; of those performances in Macedonia. These immigrants, and those The bulk of his fortune, both company shares sold out the ,-seat theater. The inaugural from Bulgaria proper, typically settled together and real estate, was left to the foundation, season brought the American debut of the fiery in the pre–World War II years, and established whose endowment had surpassed $ billion American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, communities in Chicago and G as well (with more than $ million annual grant as the title role in Bellini’s Norma. Callas went as downstate in Madison, Granite City, and making) by . on to even more rapturous successes here as Venice, Illinois. In Grace Abbott, writing At its inception, the MacArthur Founda- Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, the title role about the desperate poverty in which hundreds tion attracted attention because it was a new, in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Cio- of these immigrants were initially living, esti- general purpose, nationally focused founda- Cio San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, among mated that , Macedonians and Bulgarians tion with an asset base that almost immedi- other roles. Italian singers and operas predom- were living in Chicago. ately made it among the country’s largest. The inated in those early years. By , when Fox Early in the century, Macedonians worked MacArthur Foundation was unusual in that took sole command of a rechristened Lyric almost exclusively in heavy industry. Many the donor left no specific instructions as to the Opera of Chicago, the company had been nick- found work in Chicago’s rail yards. Others purpose of his philanthropic legacy. He sim- named “La Scala West.” worked in slaughterhouses, tanneries, fertil- ply named a number of business associates, old By the late s, Lyric boasted a greatly izer factories, and steel mills. Chicago served Chicago friends, and prominent academics as expanded repertoire, an imposing roster of as a transfer point for Macedonians heading the board of trustees, whose job it has been to world-class singers (including Catherine Mal- to St. Louis, or to the Western states to find develop a systematic program of giving. fitano, Renee´ Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Jane railroad and mining . Prior to the for- The MacArthur Foundation had become Eaglen, Jerry Hadley, Ben Heppner, James mation of Orthodox churches in the s, one of the largest and most important phil- Morris, and Bryn Terfel), and capacity houses Macedonian immigrants found solace in cafes anthropic foundations in the country by the for nearly every performance in seasons that near their , and in a num- end of its second decade. It focused on two extended from September to March. Ardis ber of , the first of major areas of giving: Human and Commu- Krainik, who succeeded Fox as general di- which was founded in Chicago in . nity Development (with special attention to rector upon the latter’s retirement in , Chicago Macedonians campaigned openly Chicago and to Palm Beach County, Florida), earned a reputation as a tough businesswoman for the independence of their homeland. In and Global Security and Sustainability. But and shrewd arts executive. She also won wide , several hundred members of the Bul- it was best-known to the general public for respect for the Lyric as a theater that took garo-Macedonian League paraded through the its MacArthur Fellows Program, popularly twentieth-century opera as seriously as the city’s West Side and rallied at Bricklayer’s Hall knownasthe“genius” awards—large prizes classics. The company’s first integral produc- to protest Ottoman rule. In Chicago Ma- given without application to people of out- tion of Wagner’s Ring cycle, in March , cedonians held a “Great Macedonian Con- standing promise and performance in any field was its most ambitious and, at $. million, gress” to express hope that President Wilson’s of endeavor. most expensive artistic endeavor to date. Her Fourteen Points would guarantee Macedonia Stanley N. Katz ambitious initiative “Toward the st Cen- a free homeland. In , Macedonians in tury,” which included a retrospective of im- See also: Philanthropy North America formed the Macedonian Po- portant American operas and world premieres litical Organization (MPO) to campaign for commissioned by the Lyric, was a bellwether Macedonians. The most intense period of Macedonian independence. Since the s, for similar programs at other U.S. companies. Macedonian immigration took place before Chicago and Gary have hosted the MPO’s Alphabetic-L Encyclopedia of Chicago UC-Enc-v.cls May , : MACHINE POLITICS annual conventions on at least six occasions. bringing representatives from the G, of , , and other forms In Bulgarians and Macedonians together P,C, and J communities into of in the W C, Kelly obtained founded St. Sophia Bulgarian E O- leadership positions. The life of the Demo- from illegal sources the “grease” necessary to Church on North Lawndale Avenue. cratic machine’s George Washington was cut keep the machine operating. Third, he ac- After World War II, Macedonian immigrants short in when Cermak became the unin- tively cultivated A A voters, coming from the new republic or from north- tended victim of an attempted assassination of and his success paid huge dividends in later ern Greece began to view themselves as eth- president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. years when Chicago’s black population in- nically Macedonian, and had fewer connec- After Cermak’s death, the Irish seized con- creased dramatically. Kelly won reelection in tions to the older generation. Macedonian trol of the Democratic machine as party , , and , but problems arose by Orthodox churches began to grow in the Mid- chairman Patrick A. Nash engineered the . Concerns about the number of scan- west, Northeast, and Ontario, and in the s appointment of Edward J. Kelly as mayor. dals in municipal government (especially in the new generation of Chicago Macedonians, The K-N followed Cer- the public school system) surfaced alongside which was steadily making its way into the mak’s lead, however, doling out a rising public outcry against the highly vis- American middle class, founded Sts. Cyril and jobs, political appointments, and favors to a ible presence of organized crime in the city. Methodins in Hinsdale, Illinois. The task of as- broad spectrum of ethnic groups. Kelly not But among the Democratic faithful, Kelly’s certaining the total number of Macedonians in only held the fledgling political machine to- greatest liability proved to be his uncom- Chicago is confused by the association of many gether in its infancy but strengthened it by promising stand in favor of public housing with either the Bulgarian or G churches, utilizing three important sources. First, he be- and desegregated public . The party but Macedonians probably numbered fewer came a fervent supporter of Franklin D.