In Spring 2020 Lucy Yates joined The Industry on keyboards for Sweet Land, with music by Du Yun and Raven Chacon. She made her conducting debut in 2018 as maestro al cembalo at Seattle Opera with the "extremely inventive" O+E (Gluck and Calzabigi's 1762 Orfeo ed Euridice), in an "elegantly poetic" English version she created for that production. She made her Rossini Opera Festival debut in 2014 as onstage continuo fortepianist in Mario Martone's staging of Aureliano in Palmira (DVD on ArtHaus Musik).

Miss Yates first drew international attention as Violetta in a new Franco Zeffirelli/Plácido Domingo production of La traviata (Teatro Verdi di Busseto), and was immediately engaged by Gian Carlo Menotti for Spoleto (Monica in The Medium, under his direction) and Francesco Maria Colombo for the Orchestra Verdi di Milano. 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 of playing and coaching for Bel Canto at Caramoor—now triumphantly reestablished as Teatro Nuovo—with Will Crutchfield, Miss Yates has emerged as a cogent and lyrical translator and teacher of Italian grammar and poetry. She teaches Italian libretto intensives for dell'Arte Opera Ensemble. She has also served as production dramaturg, titlist, and coach for the New York City Opera, and panelist on the beloved Toll Brothers Metropolitan Opera Radio Quiz. She is a Lecturer in Opera in the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA.