More than 60 years of artistic excellence and community engagement has earned The Dallas Opera a major role in shaping the national/international cultural reputation of Dallas. TDO has also made—and continues to make—an important contribution to the economic impact of the performing arts in North Texas.
Background
The Dallas Opera was officially founded in 1957, opening with a heavily publicized concert, starring a glittering and glamorous Maria Callas. In the years since, TDO has presented many international artists in their U.S. debuts, including Dame Joan Sutherland, Plácido Domingo, Jon Vickers, Montserrat Caballé, Teresa Berganza, Helga Dernesch, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Waltraud Meier, director/designer Franco Zeffirelli, and Clémentine Margaine.
In recent years, the company’s commitment to community engagement, audience development, public simulcasts, artistic collaborations, innovative productions and programming, technological enhancements, fiscally responsible management, and support for emerging artists have dramatically advanced and expanded the mission of The Dallas Opera.
Opera Premieres
A champion of new work, The Dallas Opera has presented the American premieres of five operas, as well as additional world premieres. The company commissioned composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer to create a critically acclaimed opera based on Herman Melville’s 19th-century novel, Moby-Dick (April 2010), and a new song cycle, A Question of Light (premiered in April 2011), inspired by artworks on display at the Dallas Museum of Art. TDO also commissioned an exciting new opera from Jake Heggie and Tony Award-winning librettist Terrence McNally, Great Scott, for mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. (A live recording of the performances has been released on CD). Other recent world premieres include American composer Mark Adamo’s kaleidoscopic holiday celebration, Becoming Santa Claus (now available on DVD and Blu-ray) as well as the phenomenally intense 2015 drama, Everest, by British composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer.
The company’s commitment to outstanding opera of every era is reflected in its decision to launch a dedicated chamber series with an all-new production of Peter Maxwell Davies’ haunting 1980 masterpiece, The Lighthouse. Conducted by Nicole Paiement, The Dallas Opera’s Principal Guest Conductor and only the second woman ever to take the podium at TDO, and staged by Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty in his opera debut, the production sparked major buzz and critical accolades. Other chamber works chosen for outstanding TDO productions and concert performances have ranged from Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw to Arjuna’s Dilemma, inspired by an ancient Hindu text set to music by Douglas J. Cuomo.
Education and Families
Our renewed commitment to children and families resulted in the creation of several new education programs; a production of Georges Bizet’s charming Doctor Miracle, newly translated into English and staged in partnership with Dallas Children’s Theater; Jacques Offenbach’s Pépito; Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love; and family-friendly productions of John Davies’ Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, and The Bremen Town Musicians. Altogether, our education outreach initiatives touch the lives of more than 25,000 children each year.
Opera’s Home Stage
The Dallas Opera inaugurated mainstage performances in the Foster + Partners designed Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in October of 2009 with a new production of Verdi’s Otello and offered its first free public simulcast on Opening Night the following season (Don Giovanni), which became a standard that continues today. In April 2012, the Dallas Opera extended its simulcast outreach beyond the Dallas Arts District to serve around 15,000 people who streamed into Cowboys Stadium in Arlington for a Texas-record-setting simulcast of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and again the following April for Puccini’s Turandot — both helping to fulfill the Opera’s mission of bringing this cherished art form to the greater North Texas community. Starting with our 2013 simulcast of Carmen to Klyde Warren Park, a new fall tradition has attracted thousands to Uptown to experience live performances of Tosca, The Marriage of Figaro, Moby-Dick and more.
Filling another vital niche in the performing arts scene is The Robert E. and Jean Ann Titus Art Song Recital Series, which brings the world’s finest recitalists to Dallas to share their artistry in intimate venues. Michael Fabiano and Laurent Philippe, Nadine Sierra and Bryan Wagorn, Frederica von Stade and Jake Heggie, Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez, and Matthew Polenzani and Julius Drake have dazzled in these performances!
Cultivating Talent
One of the most important recent developments at The Dallas Opera is the creation of the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors to support exceptionally talented women conductors on the cusp of major careers, now expanded to include special programs for talented female administrators striving to reach the top of their profession. Distinguished faculty have included Emmanuel Villaume, Nicole Paiement, Marin Alsop, Marc Scorca, Carlo Montanaro, Ian Robertson, Sheri Greenawald, Paul Hsun-Ling Chou, Zizi Mueller, Alec Treuhaft, and Carol Lazier.