The performing arts are in trouble. Go to a live performance at any theater, and you will likely see an audience dominated by an older generation. These are the people who fill the seats and support the arts financially. The news reminds us daily that the United States is in…
As the rather sparse crowd settled into their seats before Friday’s opening performance of The Ring of Polykrates, most look confused. For Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s piece at The Dallas Opera, the orchestra sat atop the stage rather than below because they performed Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major prior to his…
Prepare to be “swept away” by the Dallas Opera’s new season. That’s the theme the opera is rolling with for its 2018-19 season, which will be “filled with captivating stories and unsurpassed music performed by some of the world’s greatest opera stars,” says Kern Wildenthal, interim general director and CEO. Last week,…
Becoming Santa Claus, the fourth opera by composer and librettist Mark Adamo, was recorded at the Winspear Opera House in December 2015. Now, it has made it through the first round of Grammy nominations in the categories of best composition, best opera recording and best engineering. The Dallas Opera production…
The three-act French opera Samson and Dalila, first performed in 1877, seemed like an odd choice to start the Dallas Opera’s 2017-18 season. But Friday’s opening-night performance proved that it has stood the test of time. Composer Camille Saint-Saëns recognized that opera is all about drama, and Dallas Opera’s interpretation…
The first American centennial was the U.S. centennial of 1876 in Philadelphia for which 200 new buildings were constructed, none of which exist today. Centennials in several states followed, and the track record is much the same: Buildings go up, but none survive. Then there’s Dallas’ Fair Park, where the…
The new exhibit at the Meadows Museum is small, but it packs a punch. Picasso/Rivera: Still Life and the Precedence of Form comprises eight works by four Cubist masters — Juan Gris, Maria Blanchard, Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera — and reveals how they influenced each other. In some cases, similarities…
The new East Coast-inspired seafood restaurant Hudson House is not a one-trick pony. It brings more than just East Coast fare to Lovers Lane. From their $90 Royal Seafood Tower, featuring specialty oysters, shrimp cocktail, tuna tartare, cracked king crab and poached lobster tail, to their $12 cheeseburger, the management team…
Some Dallasites may be surprised to find that there is a sculpture garden and art gallery north of LBJ Freeway that has been presenting the work of contemporary artists to a faithful following for more than 60 years. In 1953, Donald and Peggy Vogel bought a creekside, wooded lot in…
The Dallas Opera is ending its 60th season on a high note with a masterful production of the bel canto opera Norma. The company’s first ever presentation of Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 masterpiece fills out what company director Keith Cerny has called “a noticeable gap in the company’s repertoire.” This grand…
The Fort Worth Opera is set to open their 2017 season with a daring lineup that includes the regional premiere of a bizarre courtroom drama and a straight-from-the-headlines mariachi opera about the effects of immigration on families. It seems to be business as usual even though just two months ago…
On Friday night, the opera Moby-Dick returned to the Winspear Opera House in Dallas, the site of its world premiere in 2010. Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer have tightly condensed Herman Melville’s 800-page classic into a two act, three-hour opera. They stayed true to the mood of this…
Musa Ngqungwana basks in the warm embrace of Dallas’ southern hospitality and 80-degree fall days. He is visiting from the East Coast, Philadelphia and New York, where the days are already getting cool, and here he can wear his shorts and golf shirts in October. He says he is enjoying…
