Opera High
The Dallas Opera needs a few good climbers for Everest bragging rights
The Dallas Opera is bringing the world’s tallest peak to town next month, and it’s looking for experienced climbers to scale it for the production of Everest. Although many mountain climbers have a bucket list of places to conquer, few offer as much oxygen and controlled temperature as the one premiering on January 30, 2015, at the Winspear Opera House.
The casting call for supernumeraries, or supers, seeks men and women of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds with legitimate climbing experience to provide an extra level of realism to British composer Joby Talbot’s first opera.
Applicants are expected to be up for dangling in a harness from as high as 30 feet for up to 15 minutes at a time. Strong loins are presumably helpful for such matters, and any supers will receive a small compensation, free tickets to the show and the ability to claim they’ve scaled two different Everests, provided, of course, that they have been to the one in the Himalayas.
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay can’t even touch that.
Everest — for which the Dallas Opera recently received an NEA grant — tells the story of an ill-fated trek on the famous mountain, and the cast includes tenor Andrew Bidlack and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, as well as bass Kevin Burdette and baritone Craig Verm in their company debuts.
Music will be conducted by contemporary music specialist and Dallas Opera Principal Guest Conductor Nicole Paiement and staged by director Leonard Foglia (Moby-Dick) with stunning projections by Elaine J. McCarthy (Moby-Dick, Tristan & Isolde.) It is part of a double bill with La Wally, Act IV, which will be performed in Italian. Everest will be sung in English.
To apply, go the Dallas Opera website and fill out this form. Supers rehearsals begin in early January for the climbers with a passion for opera who make the cut.
