Stephen Costello News

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.

Celebrating its 60th Year, the grand passions and lush melodies of Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN open The Dallas Opera's exciting 2016-2017 Season. The Linda and Mitch Hart Season Opening Night Performance features an international all-star cast in this bittersweet story about love, pride and, ultimately, regrets.

The Dallas Opera is thrilled to announce the fourteenth in a series of free public simulcasts, this time involving a game-changing Dallas Opera production: Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's critically acclaimed twenty-first century masterpiece: MOBY-DICK, starring world-renowned helden tenorJay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab.

One of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala returns home to New York's Carnegie Hall for the first time in more than a quarter of a century on Sunday, October 30.

Celebrating its dazzling 60th Season, The Dallas Opera presents FIRST NIGHT-part of the magnificent kick-off of the 2016-2017 Season.

21C MEDIA GROUP just released its season preview of opera, vocal and choral music for 2016-17. Scroll down for details!

 The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce that single tickets for its eagerly-anticipated 2016-2017 '60th' Season and popular Family Performances Series will go on sale to the general public on Monday, July 11, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. 

Upon the conclusion of the 20th year of its celebrated recital series, which was marked with a gala in April featuring some of opera's most prominent American and Canadian stars, the Foundation announces its 2016-17 season of events.

Working to address a long-standing career issue in the opera world, The Dallas Opera is delighted to announce that applications are now being accepted for a unique residential program designed to provide training and career support for distinctively talented women conductors: The Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera. 

The Metropolitan Opera's 2016-17 season, the 50th anniversary of its home at Lincoln Center, will feature 225 opera performances of 26 operas in a varied repertory that ranges from 18th century masterpieces to one of the most acclaimed operas in recent years. Repertoire for the company's 132nd season will include the Met premiere of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's 2000 opera L'Amour de Loin, as well as new stagings of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, Dvo?ak's Rusalka, and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. A gala concert on May 7, 2017 will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company's Lincoln Center location with performances by opera's leading stars honoring the Met's past and future. Ticket prices will not increase, remaining the same as in the current season, and audience development programs instituted by the company in recent years will continue.  

 The Dallas Opera resumes the 2015-2016 Season in early spring with Jules Massenet's heart-wrenching and seductive tale of love, lust, and spectacularly bad choices: MANON, opening March 4, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House for the first of four performances.

LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER - the multiple Emmy Award-winning performing arts series that for more than 40 years has showcased the best of the wide-ranging programming from the world's leading performing arts center - will broadcast the opera world's most highly anticipated event of the season tonight, February 5, 2016.

The Dallas Opera is proud to announce its spectacular 2016-2017 Season, consisting of five brilliant mainstage productions, including two repertoire classics never before performed by this company. 

LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER - the multiple Emmy Award-winning performing arts series that for more than 40 years has showcased the best of the wide-ranging programming from the world's leading performing arts center - will broadcast the opera world's most highly anticipated event of the season on February 5, 2016. The annual Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala concert features some of opera's biggest stars, including Andrea Bocelli, Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, Isabel Leonard, Christine Goerke, Lawrence Brownlee, Stephen Costello, Nadine Sierra, and Piotr Bezcala, along with this year's Richard Tucker Award winner, Jamie Barton. Supporting the singers will be members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and New York Choral society under the baton of Eugene Kohn. Live From Lincoln Center's 'From Bocelli to Barton: The Richard Tucker Opera Gala' will air on Friday, February 5, 2016, at 9:00 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), and will be hosted by Audra McDonald.

The Dallas Opera is the proud recipient of two extraordinary new gifts, totaling $2 million, from The Eugene McDermott Foundation and Mrs. Eugene (Margaret) McDermott, who have requested that the position of Dallas Opera General Director and CEO be known henceforth as the “Kern Wildenthal General Director and CEO” in honor of the longtime Dallas Opera Board Member and Past Chairman.  Dr. Wildenthal currently serves the company as an Officer-at-large on TDO's Executive Committee.

 DALLAS, TX, December 8, 2015 – The Dallas Opera will present opera legend Frederica von Stade, mezzo-soprano, for another magnificent performance in The Robert E. and Jean Ann Titus Art Song Recital Series. The one-time-only recital will be presented Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. at City Performance Hall (a 749-seat venue located at 2520 Flora Street in the Arts District, Dallas, TX 75201). Also featured at the exclusive event will be Jake Heggie, composer (Great Scott, Moby-Dick) and accomplished pianist, who has had a long-standing artistic collaboration with Miss von Stade.

The Met's production of Verdi's great opera RIGOLETTO, is often referred to as the 'Ratpack' version--because it is set in the Las Vegas days of Frank Sinatra and his high-living cronies. From its debut, it was a huge success for the company and with good cause. It was brilliantly conceived and sung, even though the title role seemed fuzzier than it usually is in the standard setting. But how would it stand up, season after season, I wondered, when the novelty wore off? The good news is that the production (excitingly designed by Christine Jones) not only remains effective and entertaining, but, in a key way, it is even better than at the premiere nearly three years ago.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual galas--celebrating each year's winner of the Tucker Award to young American singers--are known for two things. First, they are notoriously fun evenings of opera warhorses and, second, they are guessing games: Which of the singers scheduled to perform won't show up? This year's gala fulfilled the first object delectably, as it celebrated mezzo Jamie Barton, but, surprise!, almost everyone appeared as scheduled, with one very noticeable exception.

Verdi's Rigoletto returns to the Met October 20 for fifteen performances. Michael Mayer's 2013 production, set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino, will star George Gagnidze in the title role opposite two singers in company role debuts: Olga Peretyatko as Gilda and Stephen Costello as the Duke. Spanish maestro Pablo Heras-Casado will lead the initial performances of the opera, which also feature Štefan Kocán as Sparafucile and Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Leoson, in her Met debut, as Maddalena. Later performances this season will star Željko Lu?i? in the title role and Piotr Beczala as the Duke, roles both sang in the new production premiere of Mayer's staging, opposite 2009 National Council Auditions winner Nadine Sierra in her Met debut as Gilda. Roberto Abbado conducts a cast that also features Russian bass Dimitry Ivashchenko in his Met debut as Sparafucile and Nancy Fabiola Herrera as Maddalena.

The Met came late to the trio of Donizetti operas about British queens, when it finally mounted ANNA BOLENA mounted for Anna Netrebko in 2011. This was long after Beverly Sills made her deal with the devil, trading her voice for the cover of Time Magazine, by singing Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I at New York City Opera. The Met is finally getting around to mounting its own take on the operas this season (the so-called Tudor Trilogy) not for Netrebko but for American Sondra Radvanovsky. As Anna, she delivers a thrilling, go-for-broke performance.