Opera News

The Dallas Opera drops curtain on 2020 performances due to COVID-19

Orfeo ed Euridice has been cut from the 2020-21 season.

Photo by Cory Weaver

There will be no performances in 2020, The Dallas Opera has decided. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of nine performances — or 38 percent of the season — one replacement title, and one cut to the previously announced 2020-21 roster of operas.

Ian Derrer, the Kern Wildenthal general director and CEO of The Dallas Opera, has said that the entire season will be consolidated into the spring of 2021, with four opera productions presented instead of the original five. Verdi's Don Carlo will replace Wagner's Lohengrin, and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice will be eliminated.

"This virus is a serious threat to all the hallmarks of grand opera, which include amassing huge forces on stage and in the pit, bringing large crowds together in our theaters, assembling casts from all over the world, and listening to singers, sometimes in passionate embrace, filling the hall with powerful voices and glorious sound without the use of microphones," Derrer says in a release.

"Our mission at The Dallas Opera has always been to give our audiences thrilling, world-class opera, but the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to re-position our operations, at least for the near future. Safety concerns for our audiences, artists, and staff; travel restrictions for artists; new social distancing needs both onstage and in the theater — the myriad uncertainties and restrictions caused by this pandemic have led us to the difficult decision that we cannot open in October 2020 as originally scheduled," he continues.

The 2020/2021 season, which was to have opened on October 9, 2020, will now begin on March 5, 2021, with the world premiere of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Composed by Joby Talbot with libretto by Gene Scheer, the opera will perform two additional performances: March 13 and a matinee on March 7.

Verdi's Don Carlo is next, with performances March 27 (matinee), March 31, and April 3 (matinee).

The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, which was originally planned to be the season opener, continues on April 9, April 11 (matinee), April 14, and April 17.

As planned, Tosca's Puccini will close the season with performances on April 16, April 18 (matinee), April 21, April 24, and May 2 (matinee).

The traditional fall concert and gala dinner, this season titled Viva Diva! and featuring Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, has been moved from November 6, 2020, to May 10, 2021.

Full series subscribers will have the opportunity to replace their fifth opera with seats to Viva Diva!, donate the prorated value of their fifth-opera tickets to TDO's fundraising efforts (an emergency relief fund has a goal of raising $4 million by September 30, 2020), apply the credit to their 2021/2022 season tickets, or receive a refund.

The productions of the family performance series are also affected. Instead of two performances each, one in the fall and one in the spring, Doctor Miracle and Jack and the Beanstalk will each perform once in March. Bizet's Doctor Miracle is scheduled for March 6, 2021, and John Davies and Sir Arthur Sullivan's Jack on March 14, 2021.

Regarding repertoire changes, Derrer said that both he and music director Emmanuel Villaume were committed to bringing Wagner's rarely performed Lohengrin to Dallas audiences.

"But given the large number of forces required to produce this monumental masterpiece and unpredictable travel restrictions for our international artists, we are postponing its presentation until we can assure our audiences of the highest artistic experience," Derrer explains. "Also, with so much of Verdi's magnificent Don Carlo already rehearsed, a cost saving for TDO — and with many original cast members — it seemed appropriate to give Don Carlo a second chance, knowing that Orfeo ed Euridice can easily be programmed in a future season."

The company has also been forced to introduce layoffs and make further staff cutbacks. Five administrative staff members will be laid off, six full-time positions will become part-time or seasonal, and two positions will be furloughed. TDO’s full-time administrative and artistic staff has been reduced from 40 to 26, with previously announced salary reductions remaining in place.

TDO has already suffered the loss of $1.6 million in projected revenue from canceled performances in the 2019/2020 season, and ticket revenue for the 2021 season will be reduced because of the constriction of the season.

The company is in contract negotiations with two of its major unions: the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), which represents the orchestra; and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), which represents principal artists, chorus, dancers, and production staff.

A new fundraising initiative will follow in October 2020. An extension of the current DOER campaign, it will be "a three-year effort to solidify TDO's financial foundation for stable and continued growth, and will position the company to weather future unexpected events."

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Lawsuit news

Artist sues FIFA for $25 million over painted-over Dallas whale mural

Facebook/Wyland

Artist Wyland's Whaling Wall mural being painted over for a FIFA World Cup-related mural in Dallas.

The artist who painted a giant mural on a building in downtown Dallas of life-sized swimming whales has filed a $25 million lawsuit against soccer's international governing body and others, saying they illegally painted over his work to promote the city's upcoming World Cup matches.

The artist Wyland says he hand-painted the sprawling mural that covered roughly 17,000 square feet (1,580 square meters) across two of the building's walls.

The mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month, causing an uproar among residents who admired the mural's grand scale and message of ocean conservation.

The area’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement that, in place of Wyland's mural, new artwork is planned "that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026.” It said a portion of Wyland's mural would be preserved.

Wyland filed suit Monday, June 1 in U.S District Court in Dallas saying that World Cup organizers, along with the building's owner and management company, painted over his mural without his consent or even notifying him. He says their actions violated a 1990 federal law passed to protect visual artists from destruction of publicly displayed works.

Wyland is seeking at least $25 million in damages. His lawsuit says world soccer's governing body, FIFA, and other defendants “hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark” to promote the World Cup.

“Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city,” the artist's lawsuit says.

A FIFA spokesperson said Tuesday the federation “has no involvement in this whatsoever” and referred a reporter to the tournament's local organizing committee.

A spokesperson for the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee declined to comment. The committee isn't named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Slate Asset Management, which manages the building where the mural was painted over, said in a statement that local World Cup organizers asked Slate in March to donate the mural space for “a new public art installation.”

“Slate is not being compensated in any way for the use of the wall space and was told by the local groups that Mr. Wyland had been notified,” the management company's spokesperson said in an email.

Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Wyland's Dallas mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was finished in 1999 and is among more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls the artist painted around the world to promote the conservation of ocean life.

An online petition protesting the mural's destruction and calling for protecting of public artwork in Dallas has received more than 2,600 signatures.

Wyland's lawsuit alleges violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artwork of “recognized stature” even if someone else owns the physical artwork.

A judge cited that law in 2018 when he ordered a property owner to pay a group of New York graffiti artists $6.7 million for whitewashing dozens of their spray-painted murals on buildings that once housed a factory in Queens. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

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