Dallas Opera Season Preview
Dallas Opera packs 60th season with audience favorites
The Dallas Opera has amassed a roster of crowd-pleasers for its 60th season, with two of the five mainstage productions having never been performed before by the company.
First up is Eugene Onegin, the Russian lyric opera about an arrogant nobleman who flippantly dismisses everyone who could have been important to him. Baritone Andrei Bondarenko, who made his American debut last year in Dallas Opera's production of Iolanta, will sing the title role. Performances are October 28 and 30 and November 2 and 5.
In 2010, Dallas premiered the modern opera Moby-Dick by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, which went on to gather acclaim in subsequent productions around the world. Now it's back for performances November 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 20, with some of its original principle cast reprising their roles.
Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly welcomes 2017 on March 10, 12, 15, 18, 24, and 26. A naive Japanese girl enters into a marriage of convenience with an American naval officer, and she pines for him even after her abandons her. Chinese soprano Hui He makes her Dallas Opera debut as Cio-Cio-San, and she's become one of the most famous new interpreters of the role.
Squeezing in concurrently with Madame Butterfly is a debut for the Dallas Opera, Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. There will only be four performances of this dark British opera, which has been updated from the 19th century to the 1950s in this production from Glyndebourne. Catch it March 17, 19, 22, and 25.
The other Dallas Opera debut in spring 2017 will be Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, about a passionate love triangle set during the Roman occupation of Gaul in 50 B.C. On April 21, 23, 26, and 29, and May 7, audiences can experience South African soprano Elza van den Heever, South Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee, and Australian soprano Nicole Car in the leads.
