It’s not too late to get your tickets for tonight’s world premiere of Jake Heggie’s “Ahab Symphony” expanding on ideas the composer explored in his critically acclaimed 2010 Dallas Opera world premiere, “Moby-Dick.” The new work, written for the UNT Symphony Orchestra and featuring the UNT Grand Chorus and tenor soloist Richard Croft, will be [...]
Other than the blustery arctic winds, today was a perfect day in New York. Today’s auditions resulted in my discovering two really fine singers, and a few others that might prove interesting. The second singer of the morning (I usually start at 10:00 a.m.) was a gifted young baritone still at Juilliard named Tobias Greenhalgh, [...]
We here at the Dallas Opera couldn’t agree more with what Dallas Morning News reporter Michael Granberry had to say about us hiring Tony Award Winning Director Jack O’Brien to direct Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s 2015-2016 World Premiere of Great Scott starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. “Very cool news: the Dallas Opera makes a brilliant [...]
There are few things in the world of journalism more satisfying than a great interview and there’s a great interview with composer Jake Heggie in “The Cornell Daily Sun” conducted over the phone by Danyoung Kim. Jake and librettist Gene Scheer are going to be on campus for a master class and panel discussion. One [...]
Tenor Stephen Costello (“Greenhorn” in MOBY-DICK) with his voice teacher Bill Schuman in San Francisco. It was such a thrill to see MOBY-DICK again last night, with most of the original cast intact from the world premiere in Dallas, along with the original conductor, Patrick Summers and stage director Leonard Foglia. A large group of [...]
San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House illuminated at night in the mist I am in San Francisco to attend a performance of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s MOBY-DICK on Saturday night with almost 40 Dallas Opera patrons who wanted the chance to see and hear it again. I flew out a day early so that [...]
Poet Mary Oliver by Josh Reynolds for “The Los Angeles Times,” taken near her home on Cape Cod. I was delighted to see this story out of the Breckenridge Music Festival. While Brahms is certainly no “slouch,” I was particularly pleased to see that Helen Blackburn, principal flutist for the Dallas Opera Orchestra, is also performing [...]
The glamorous French Opera House, New Orleans, after losing one of its many lives. There’s a lot of discussion these days about the newest performing arts venues and whether that money could have been better spent somewhere else. But while reading David L. Groover and Cecil C. Conner, Jr.’s Skeletons from the Opera Closet, [...]
Illness has forced tenor Ben Heppner to cancel his appearance in Tuesday evening’s performance of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s “Moby-Dick” at the San Diego Civic Center. Jay Hunter Morris, who sang the role of Captain Ahab in an earlier production of the work in Adelaide, Australia, will step-in for the ailing singer. Hunter had [...]
Basking in the glowing reviews for the Dallas Opera’s extraordinary production of TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, I got on a plane for San Diego to attend the west coast premiere of MOBY-DICK. It was wonderful to be reunited with this magnificent work which we commissioned for the opening season of the Winspear Opera House and [...]
