Season Announcement

Cool collabs fill the bill for Dallas Opera's 2019-20 season

Pulcinella will be a collaboration with Dallas Black Dance Theatre.

Photo by Brian Guilliaux

It's been 10 years since the Winspear Opera House opened, and the Dallas Opera is paying tribute to the sleek scarlet building by naming its 63rd season "Standing Ovat10n."

Of the five mainstage productions, audiences can expect to see a co-production with Santa Fe Opera of a rarely performed work; a ballet with song — featuring dancers from Dallas Black Dance Theatre — on a double bill with a one-woman drama; and three perennial favorites.

"The coming season offers a splendid opportunity to both celebrate and recollect our first decade in the Winspear Opera House," says the DO's general director and CEO Ian Derrer. "It is also marked by a balanced mix of great opera in several languages, from classic to modern, in both popular and brand-new productions."

It begins with Mozart's The Magic Flute, set in a fairytale world where a young prince must brave enchanted beings and beasts to rescue his love. This production, originally directed by the late Sir Peter Hall, was designed by British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, best known for a half century of scathing political cartoons for The London Sunday Times and for directing and designing the animation sequence for Pink Floyd's film and concert versions of The Wall. Sung in German with English supertitles, it runs October 18, 20 (matinee), 23, 26, and November 1 and 3 (matinee).

Next is a work by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, perhaps best known as the composer of Scheherazade. The Golden Cockerel centers on a lazy king who's surrounded by terrible advisors, a leader who'd rather be in bed eating bonbons than waging war. But when an astrologer gives him a magic bird that will sound the alarm whenever danger is near, the king thinks he can rest easy — until a voluptuous young queen arrives and demands his keys to the kingdom. Co-produced with the Santa Fe Opera and sung in Russian with English supertitles, it runs October 27 (matinee), 30, and November 2.

A concert version of Verdi's Don Carlo is the first opera of 2020, bringing the Spanish Inquisition to the stage. A French princess is forced to marry King Philip II of Spain against her will when her heart belongs to Don Carlo in what The New York Times described as "the Hamlet of Italian opera." A generation has passed since the Dallas Opera's sole presentation of this titanic tale of clashing Catholics and Protestants, and it runs March 20, 22 (matinee), 25, and 28.

The double bill of Stravinsky's Pulcinella and La Voix Humaine by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau brings music and dance together into one experience. Dallas Black Dance Theatre supports the three singers of Pulcinella, which is about a mercurial rogue who constantly interrupts other people's romances because the ladies can't resist him. Patricia Racette, meanwhile, is starring in the one-woman show whose title translates to The Human Voice, about a woman who's having one final phone conversation with her callous and longtime lover, who is leaving her for another. The two shows — which have never before been seen in Dallas — run April 3, 4, 5 (matinee), and 8.

A longtime favorite closes out the season: Rossini's The Barber of Seville. This sunny comedy is filled with famous tunes and centers on "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!" a scheming barber and jack-of-all-trades who plots to release the pretty young Rosina from her gilded cage so his pal Count Almaviva can marry her. It runs April 24, April 26 (matinee), 29, May 2, 8, and 10 (matinee).

The Dallas Opera's acclaimed family performance series, which aims to help children develop an early love of opera and music, also continues with two shows.

An operatic version of the Brothers Grimm classic fairytale The Town Musicians of Bremen is enhanced with music by Rossini, Donizetti, Offenbach, Arthur Sullivan, and Verdi to become The Bremen Town Musicians. A rooster with operatic aspirations is chased away from his farm for waking the barnyard with his tenor arias, while a dog and a cat are cast out by their owner for being too old to catch rabbits and mice. The three animals run into the woods near the road to Bremen, where a retired army donkey is playing his drum. Working together as a team to overcome difficult circumstances, the newly formed Bremen Town Musicians celebrate the idea that friendship, cooperation, and respect for others is far better than facing problems alone. Performances are October 13, 2019, and April 4, 2020.

Doctor Miracle by Georges Bizet is a romantic, one-act operetta about love and omelets that Bizet composed for a music competition when he was just 18 years old. A youthful vitality permeates this story, set in 19th-century Padua, Italy, in the home of the mayor, his wife Veronica, and his love-struck daughter, Laurette. She's enamored of the ever-resourceful Silvio, an army captain, who dons one disguise after another to infiltrate the household, in order to win the hand of the girl he adores. Performances are October 6, 2019, and March 21, 2020.

Flex subscriptions for three mainstage performances of your choice begin at $24, while full subscriptions begin at $100 for all five productions. New subscriptions will become available on April 2, 2019.

Single tickets for next season will start at $19 and are expected to go on sale in early July. Student rush $15 tickets are available 90 minutes prior to curtain with a valid student ID.

For additional information, call the Dallas Opera ticket services office at 214-443-1000 or go online at www.dallasopera.org.

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Elon News

Dallas bookstore and publisher gets federal arts funding axed

Deep Vellum

Stack of books at Deep Vellum

A Dallas arts organization got its budget chopped by the federal government: Deep Vellum, the bookstore and publisher at 3000 Commerce St., lost a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant due to federal government budget cuts.

According to owner Will Evans, the award, which is granted annually, has been terminated as of May 31. The bookstore had received $20,000 for the past six years.

Deep Ellum started as a publisher in 2013 and opened their bookstore in Deep Ellum in 2015. Since then, they have become a center for literature lovers. Evans is a translator whose mission has been to translate the world’s best novels into English for American audiences.

Evans was notified on May 2 via an email that was reportedly sent to grant recipients nationwide. The note read:

"The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities."

The new priorities included projects that elevate the Nation's HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.

The Grants and Public Affairs departments at NEA did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday May 5, the Literary Staff was laid off, and the agency is facing possible elimination entirely, as part of the 2026 Discretionary Budget Request presented to Congress on May 2.

This year's grant to Deep Vellum was earmarked to fund the translation, publishing, and marketing costs of four books:

Carapace Dancer by Natalia Toledo, translated from Zapotec, published trilingually with Spanish and English translations alongside the original, translated by Clare Sullivan
Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird of New Zealand, making her US debut, illustrated by Dallas artist Gino Dal Cin
Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz, translated from the German by Max Lawton, a 1001-page masterpiece and English-language debut
The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from Chinese by Dong Li, the English-language debut from one of China's most distinguished and independent poets

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1965 as a funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide anxd a catalyst of public and private support for the arts with the goal of advancing opportunities for arts participation and practice, according to their website.

In their last stats document updated in November 2024, their FY’24 budget was outlined as $207M (representing 0.03 percent of the total federal budget), with 80 percent of their budget supporting grants and awards to organizations and individuals across the country. They typically offer over 2,000 grants each year.

"It’s been a strange few days for us, and for countless other nonprofit publishers, magazines, and arts organizations," Evans said.

Despite the cut, Deep Vellum plans to continue to promote literacy through unique books translated to the English language.

“This is not going to imperil our future but it’s something we need to consider as we move forward. These books are extraordinary, and they add so much for readers and culture. We just need to find additional revenue to fund them," Evans said.

Evans was first to reveal the funding cut but a number of organizations across Dallas and Texas have seen similar cuts including Ballet North Texas, Flamenco Fever, Dallas Theater Center, and Bishop Arts Theatre Center, as well as a number of groups in Austin.

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