Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime, and received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, and he also received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. His other accolades included an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards.
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.
Houston Grand Opera (HGO) is an American opera company located in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1955 by German-born impresario Walter Herbert and three local Houstonians, the company is resident at the Wortham Theater Center. This theatre is also home to the Houston Ballet. In its history, the company has received a Tony Award, two Grammy Awards, and three Emmy Awards, the only opera company in the world to win these three honours. Houston Grand Opera is supported by an active auxiliary organization, the Houston Grand Opera Guild, established in October 1955.
Frederica von Stade is a semi-retired American classical singer. Best known for her work in opera, she was also a recitalist and concert artist, and she recorded more than a hundred albums and videos. She is especially associated with operas by Mozart and Rossini, and also with music by French and American composers, most notably Jake Heggie. A Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, twice the winner of a Grand Prix du Disque and nominated nine times for a Grammy award, she is widely regarded as the pre-eminent lyric mezzo-soprano of her generation.
Kevin Burdette is an American bass who has worked as a soloist with the Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Teatro Colón, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington National Opera, New York City Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and the Spoleto Festival USA, as well as many regional opera companies including Florentine Opera, Opéra de Québec, Portland Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Atlanta Opera, Virginia Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Memphis, Gotham Chamber Opera, Knoxville Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Toledo Opera, and the Lyric Opera of San Antonio. In 2015, he created the roles of Beck Weathers in Joby Talbot's Everest, Blindman and Stobrod Thewes in Jennifer Higdon's Cold Mountain, Eric Gold and the Ghost of Bazzetti in Jake Heggie's Great Scott, and Ob in Mark Adamo's Becoming Santa Claus.
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.
Mark Adamo is an American composer, librettist, and professor of music composition at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He was born in Philadelphia.
Three Decembers is a chamber opera in two acts by Jake Heggie to a libretto by Gene Scheer which is based on the unpublished play Some Christmas Letters by Terrence McNally. Created with a role for Frederica von Stade, the work premiered on 29 February 2008 at the Houston Grand Opera (HGO). It commissioned the work in association with the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
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.
Stephen John Costello is an American operatic tenor and a recipient of the 2009 Richard Tucker Award. Costello has performed in noted opera houses around the world including Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2010, Costello originated the role of Greenhorn (Ishmael) in the world premiere of Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick at the Dallas Opera.
State Opera South Australia (SOSA) is a professional opera company in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 1976.
Gene Scheer is an American songwriter, librettist and lyricist. Brother to Samuel Scheer, an English teacher at Windsor High School and part-time musician.
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.
Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been Todd Boss.
Jennifer Rivera is an American mezzo-soprano who has had an active international performance career in operas and concerts since the early 2000s.
Music of Remembrance is a non-profit classical chamber music organization based in Seattle whose purpose is to find and perform music composed by victims of the Holocaust, irrespective of their background, as well as to perform related newly commissioned works.
Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) dedicated to fostering the development of new American operas. This collaboration is jointly led by Evans Mirageas, the Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director at Cincinnati Opera, as well as Robin Guarino, Professor of Opera at CCM. Since its founding in 2011, OF:NW has developed twenty-three new American operas. From the program's inception in 2011 through 2022, co-founders Marcus Küchle and Guarino served as co-artistic directors.
Tomer Zvulun is an Israeli stage director. Since 2013 he is the General and Artistic Director of Atlanta Opera.
Ann Moss is an American operatic soprano. She is best known for her commitment to contemporary music, having premiered and recorded works by many living composers including Vartan Aghababian, Nancy Bachmann, Weslie Brown, David Conte, Kenneth Froelich, Keiko Fujiie, Heather Gilligan, Jake Heggie, Miriam Miller, Miya Masaoka, Kirk O'Riordan, Wayne Peterson, Eric Sawyer, Allen Shearer, John Thow and Liam Wade, among others.
