Lyric Opera of Chicago will present nine performances of William Bolcom's opera version of A View From the Bridge, Oct. 9-Nov. 5. Steppenwolf's Frank Galati (Ragtime) will direct.

With a libretto by Arnold Weinstein and Bridge's playwright Arthur Miller, View follows longshoreman Eddie Carbone, a man trying to do right by his wife, even as he becomes sexually obsessed with his teenaged niece. A View From the Bridge received an acclaimed Roundabout Theatre revival in the 1997-98 season, moving to the Neil Simon Theatre and winning two Tonys (Best Revival and Best Actor for Anthony LaPaglia).

Feb. 12-Mar. 18 at Lyric Opera, Tina Landau (Floyd Collins, Dream True) will make her Lyric Opera debut directing Georges Bizet's Carmen. Denyce Graves and Richard Leech star as the fiery Gypsy girl and the soldier who falls in love with her.

Also in the 1999-2000 season are Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff (based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor) starring renowned bass baritone Bryn Terfel, George Frideric Handel's Alcina with Renee Fleming, Verdi's Macbeth, Johann Strauss, Jr.'s Die Fledermaus, Gaetano Donizetti's The Elixir of Love and Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.

-- By Christine Ehren