Dallas Opera's SAMSON & DALILA Opens 10/20
The Dallas Opera is proud to present the initial mainstage offering of the 2017-2018 Motives Unmasked! Season: Camille Saint-Sa ns' glorious nineteenth-century grand opera, SAMSON & DALILA, opening with The Linda and Mitch Hart Season Opening Night Performance on Friday, October 20, 2017 at 8:00 p.m. (note special curtain time), the first of five performances in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Downtown Dallas. Saint-Sa ns' 1877 masterpiece features a tremendous ensemble cast that includes Russian superstar Olga Borodina, Clifton Forbis, Richard Paul Fink, Michael Chioldi and Ryan Kuster.
Applications Open for Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition
The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce that applications for the expanded Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition, scheduled to take place on Friday, April 27, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. (the free Semi-Finals Round, open to the public) and Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. (Finals Round) are now being accepted.
The Dallas Opera Announces Season Opening Festivities
The Dallas Opera announces its magnificent kick-off event of the 2017-2018 Season FIRST NIGHT. Dedicated philanthropists Dianne and Mark H. LaRoe chair the festivities and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger are Honorary Chairs. The Presenting Sponsor is Deutsche Bank Wealth Management.
Five Talents Join Metropolitan Opera's Young Artists Development Program
Beginning in the 2017-18 season, the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artists Development Program welcomes five new young artists into the acclaimed program established by Met Music Director Emeritus James Levine in 1980. Along with the returning nine participants, the program will train a new generation of artists, including opera singers, coaches, and pianists.
Conductors Announced for 2017 Hart Institute at The Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the names of the six distinguished professionals selected to participate in the third annual residency of the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera taking place November 5 - 19, 2017 in Dallas, Texas:
Dallas Opera Announces Cast Change for NORMA 5/7
The Dallas Opera has released soprano Elza van den Heever from singing the upcoming matinee performance of Vincenzo Bellini's NORMA on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 2:00 p.m., due to a family emergency. Acclaimed Italian-Canadian soprano, Aviva Fortunata, will assume the role of the betrayed Druid priestess.
Stephen Costello Leads Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE at the Met Opera, 3/3-18
As Opera News notes in a "Spotlight" double-page spread in the just-published February issue, Tucker Award-winning tenor Stephen Costello is now "at the top of his game." This spring, marking his house title role debut, he headlines Gounod's Romeo et Juliette (March 3-18) at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starring opposite Pretty Yende in Bartlett Sher's hit staging. By way of a preview, Costello and Yende will each sing romantic arias from the opera in a special Valentine's Day edition of WQXR'S Classical Beer Jam at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in downtown Manhattan, marking their first public appearance together (Feb 14). Opera lovers around the world can catch a live webcast of the performance on Facebook and WQXR.org. Meanwhile, the tenor may already be seen at the Met, channeling Frank Sinatra as the Duke of Mantua in Michael Mayer's Vegas setting of Verdi's Rigoletto (Jan 20-Feb 4), to which, last year, the New York Times found his "bright tenor … perfectly suited."
Kelli O'Hara, Jonas Kaufmann, Joyce DiDonato Will Highlight Met Opera's 2017-18 Season
The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season will feature 220 performances of 26 works, including two Met premieres, one co-commissioned by the company and one an older masterpiece having its first Met performances; a variety of repertory favorites, three in new productions; and performances of Verdi's towering concert work for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, the Requiem. Of note, Broadway star Kelli O'Hara is set to return to the Met in Così fan tutte this season.
Stephen Costello Leads Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE at the Met Opera, 3/3-18
As Opera News notes in a "Spotlight" double-page spread in the just-published February issue, Tucker Award-winning tenor Stephen Costello is now "at the top of his game." This spring, marking his house title role debut, he headlines Gounod's Romeo et Juliette (March 3-18) at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starring opposite Pretty Yende in Bartlett Sher's hit staging. By way of a preview, Costello and Yende will each sing romantic arias from the opera in a special Valentine's Day edition of WQXR'S Classical Beer Jam at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in downtown Manhattan, marking their first public appearance together (Feb 14). Opera lovers around the world can catch a live webcast of the performance on Facebook and WQXR.org. Meanwhile, the tenor may already be seen at the Met, channeling Frank Sinatra as the Duke of Mantua in Michael Mayer's Vegas setting of Verdi's Rigoletto (Jan 20-Feb 4), to which, last year, the New York Times found his "bright tenor … perfectly suited."
NYChoral Rings in the Holiday Season At Alice Tully Hall 12/21
The New York Choral Society (NYChoral) under the direction of its music director David Hayes will ring in the holiday season with a Christmas concert at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday evening, December 21st, at 7:30 p.m. The program, featuring soloists Frederick Ballentine and Justin Hopkins, will present works by two musical giants of 20th Century American choral music, Robert Shaw, whose 100th birthday would have been this year, and Robert De Cormier, NYChoral Music Director Emeritus, who was awarded the 2016 Michael Korn Founders Award by Chorus America for his lifetime contribution to the choral arts. The concert will also include works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Elizabeth Poston, and James MacMillan, and will end with an audience sing-along of beloved Christmas carols. The complete program follows:
The Dallas Opera Presents MOBY-DICK, Today
The Dallas Opera is very proud to present the eagerly anticipated revival of an historic Dallas Opera production: Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's critically acclaimed twenty-first century masterpiece: MOBY-DICK, starring world-renowned heldentenor Jay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab.