The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
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The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Lawrence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director. [1] In its first season, Maria Callas performed in an inaugural recital conducted by Rescigno, at Music Hall at Fair Park. Critic John Ardoin described the role of Lawrence Kelly in establishing the company as follows:
Many singers made their American debuts in Dallas, such as Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Gwyneth Jones, Waltraud Meier, Magda Olivero, Joan Sutherland, and Jon Vickers. Designer/director Franco Zeffirelli also made his US debut there.
The company's first commission was for Robert Xavier Rodriguez's one-act children's opera Monkey See, Monkey Do in 1985. The Dallas Opera commissioned Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers and gave its world premiere, which was nationally broadcast on PBS's “Great Performances” series in 1988. Additional commissions were for Tobias Picker's Thérèse Raquin in 2001 and Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick in 2010. Recent commissions have included British composer Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer's Everest , Great Scott by Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally, and Mark Adamo's Becoming Santa Claus.
The company moved to the Winspear Opera House as of the 2009-2010 season and moved its administrative offices into the building in the spring of 2010.
Anthony Whitworth-Jones became General Director in 2001. However, his plans for expanding the company's repertory did not come to fruition in the wake of an economic downturn during his tenure, and he stood down from the post in 2003. [2] His successor, Karen Stone, was appointed in mid-2003 as the company's fifth General Director. She had previously worked with Graeme Jenkins at the Cologne Opera in Germany, where he was principal guest conductor. Stone resigned from the post effective 30 September 2007. [3]
Keith Cerny was general director and CEO from May 2010 until January 2018. During his tenure, he initiated the company's public simulcast series in locations ranging from AT&T Stadium (home of the Dallas Cowboys) to Klyde Warren Park. This included a nine-city simulcast of Tod Machover's Death and the Powers. Cerny is credited with stabilizing company finances, which allowed both the commissioning of new operas and new initiatives such as the "Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera" (2015) designed to address the challenge of gender imbalance at the top levels of the classical music industry. In November 2015, Cerny's existing contract as General Director and CEO was extended until 2022. [4] In December 2017, the company announced Cerny's resignation from the Dallas Opera, effective January 2018. [5]
French conductor Emmanuel Villaume became the company's music director on 30 April 2013. [6] Graeme Jenkins, who was music director from 1994 to 2013, now has the title of Music Director Emeritus with the company. In November 2015, Villaume's contract was extended through June 2022. [4]
In April 2018, the company announced the appointment of Ian Derrer as its next general director and CEO effective July 2018. He previously worked with Dallas Opera from 2014 to 2016 as an artistic administrator. [7]
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, and further to the works of Verdi and Puccini, and in her early career to the music dramas of Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina.
Mario Del Monaco was an Italian operatic tenor.
Lyric Opera of Chicago is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma. Fox re-organized the company in 1956 under its present name. Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by Lyric.
Jake Heggie is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.
Tullio Serafin was an Italian conductor and former Musical Director at La Scala.
Nicola Zaccaria, born Nicholas Angelos Zachariou was a Greek bass.
Calgary Opera is a Canadian opera company based in Calgary, Alberta. The company has its administrative base at the Mamdani Opera Centre, a 2,700-square-metre (29,000-square-foot) facility in the Wesley United Church, since July 2005. The company gives its seasonal mainstage productions at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. During the summers of 2014 - 2017, the company presented 'Opera in the Village', the only Canadian outdoor summer opera festival.
Nicola Rescigno was an Italian-American conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory. Opera News said that "Rescigno was a seminal figure in the history of opera in America, a maestro and mentor who shaped the destiny and reputation of two major U.S. companies — Lyric Opera of Chicago and Dallas Opera — as well as countless singing and conducting careers. Vigorous musical integrity, idiomatic style and unfailing support of his singers were the hallmarks of his performances throughout his distinguished career, which lasted more than fifty years."
John Ardoin was an American music critic. The music critic of The Dallas Morning News for thirty-two years, he was particularly known for his friendship with the opera soprano Maria Callas, about whom Ardoin wrote four books. His influence stretched much further than Dallas, and he was well acquainted with many classical musicians of the postwar era.
Joseph Rescigno is an American conductor best known for his work in opera in North America and Europe. He served as Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor of the Florentine Opera Company of Milwaukee, WI for 38 seasons beginning in 1981. He also served as Artistic Director of l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, in Quebec, Canada, for four seasons. His commitment to young musicians and singers returns him each year to La Musica Lirica, a summer program for singers in Northern Italy, where he has been Music Director since 2005., He has mentored Solti Foundation U.S. Award recipients as part of the Foundation's residency project since the 2014–2015 season, first at the Florentine and later elsewhere. In this program, award recipients apprentice through an entire rehearsal and performance cycle.
Robert Weede was an American operatic baritone.
Emmanuel Villaume is a French orchestra conductor. He is currently music director of the Dallas Opera and chief conductor of the Prague Philharmonia.
Moby-Dick is an American opera in two acts, with music by Jake Heggie and libretto by Gene Scheer, adapted from Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The opera received its premiere at Dallas Opera in Dallas, Texas, on 30 April 2010. Heggie dedicated the opera to Stephen Sondheim.
Carol Fox was, at the age of 28, the first impresario of the Chicago Lyric Opera and credited with restoring Chicago's pre-Depression operatic glory.
Patrick Summers is an American conductor best known for his work with Houston Grand Opera (HGO), where he has been the artistic and music director since 2011, and with San Francisco Opera, where he served as principal guest conductor, 1999–2016.
Great Scott is an opera composed in 2015, with music written by Jake Heggie to a libretto by Terrence McNally. This was the duo's first, full-length opera since the premiere of Dead Man Walking in 2000. It was one of three works commissioned by the Dallas Opera in 2015.
Keith Cerny is an American opera director and businessman. From 2004 to 2007 he was executive director and CFO of the San Francisco Opera and from 2010 to 2018 he was general director of the Dallas Opera. In 2018 he was appointed general director of the Calgary Opera. He is also the former CEO of Sheet Music Plus (2008–2010), the world's largest interest-based sheet-music company. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, the Harvard Business School (M.B.A.), and the Open University in the United Kingdom. He also studied conducting, voice, and accompanying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and studied opera-accompanying in English National Opera's répétiteur training course. He also worked for McKinsey & Company for six years where he was a Senior Engagement Manager, and seven years with the consulting firm Accenture. He is also an executive board member for Opera America.
Giórgios Kokoliós-Bardi (1916-1964) was a Greek tenor who often appeared with the Greek National Opera, as well as with international theatres.
Everest is a one-act opera by Joby Talbot to an English-language libretto by Gene Scheer. It was composed in 2014 and premiered on January 30, 2015, at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House of Dallas Opera. The content deals with a real event, the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which several mountaineers died after a severe storm hit during their summit bids. It is based on interviews with survivors and shows in two strands the deaths of Rob Hall and Doug Hansen and the emotional world of Beck Weathers.
Richard McKay is an American conductor, currently serving as music director of the Dallas Chamber Symphony.
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