09 May 2008
Fort Worth Opera Festival features “Angels in America”
In 2007 it was an experiment; now it’s a new summer festival firmly rooted in fertile Texas turf with a bright view of its second season and of the more distant future as well.
Recently in Commentary
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Eight Songs from Isolation: first opera written for a socially distanced world
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Let Music Live
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Murphy & Attridge celebrate performers' humanity with a creative response to lockdown
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House unveils programme of new work alongside much-loved classics for live audiences this Autumn
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Wexford Festival Opera Gala Concert - Remote Voices: as part of Waiting for Shakespeare …The Festival in the air
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
OperaStreaming announces second season of nine new productions from the opera houses of Emilia-Romagna, free to view on YouTube
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
Connections Across Time: Sholto Kynoch on the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera 2020: Gluck's The Crown at St John's Smith Square
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
A new opera written during lockdown with three different endings to choose from to premiere this October as part of Wexford Festival Opera
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Grange Park Opera presents Britten’s Owen Wingrave, filmed on location in haunted houses in Surrey and London
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
Music and Theatre For All launches three major new projects supported by The Arts Council
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera to reopen the London Coliseum with performances of Mozart’s Requiem
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House launches autumn digital programme with a new series of Friday Premieres and screenings on Sky Arts
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
Take a Bow: Royal Opera House opens its doors for the first time in six months as part of Open House London
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields presents re:connect - a series of autumn concerts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Connections Across Time: The Oxford Lieder Festival, 10-17 October 2020
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert Autumn 2020 series: Handel and Purcell, Britain’s Orpheus
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne announces first indoor performances since lockdown, and unveils 2021 Festival repertoire
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
Royal Opera House announces autumn opera and ballet concerts
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Commentary
Traditionally, the Fort Worth Opera had spaced four productions throughout the usual music season. In 2007 the company grouped them in a four-week May-June festival that’s out to make Fort Worth a destination city for opera buffs. And it worked — it worked magnificently!
“Our model was the St. Louis Opera Theater,” says Darren Woods, FWO general director since 2001. “We wanted to make this a place that people like to visit — and where they can see four operas in only three days!” The festival gives Fort Worth an identity that sets it apart from neighboring Dallas. “We no longer have to avoid conflicts in dates,” Woods says. “We found last summer that people came over from Dallas and stayed. “They enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of downtown Fort Worth and appreciated the ease with which they could walk from good hotels and great restaurants to Bass Hall, our major venue.” (The city’s many museums, including the Amon Carter and Kimbell, make Fort Worth an antechamber of paradise for art lovers.)
Adding to the allure in 2007 was FWO’s very first world premiere: Frau Margot, a work that returned Thomas Pasitieri to composition for the first time in 15 years. The festival format encourages Woods to do the kind of programming that will enhance the reputation of his company. “With four operas in repertory we can mix the traditional with the unusual,” he says. “It makes the season easier to market, for we can sell the four as a package.” Only two of the four 2008 operas qualify as traditional: Puccini’s Turandot and Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti. The other two lay equal claim to the “unusual” label.
Some consider Of Mice and Men to be Carlisle Floyd’s finest opera. Yet, although it was premiered in 1970, it is not often encountered on stage today. “People don’t like the novel,” Woods says of John Steinbeck’s 1937 story of two migrant farm workers. “But it’s a very American work, and an American company should do it. “It’s breathtaking!” Woods’ pride is that he has been able to cast Anthony Dean Griffey as Lennie, the child-like innocent at the heart of the story. Tenor Griffey‘s portrayal of Peter Grimes in the Benjamin Britten masterpiece was a major event of the current Metropolitan Opera season. Canadian baritone Phillip Addis sings George.
But for Woods the coup of the season is this country’s first fully-staged production of Peter Eötvös’ Angels in America, premiered in Paris, where the Hungarian composer lives, in 2002. “It’s been done in a small house in Boston,” Woods says, “but this will be the first full-blown American production!” When he saw Angels in Paris Woods loved the opera, but he was not impressed by the production. “It was a European ‘take’ on a very American subject — AIDS in this country in the age of Ronald Reagan,” he says. “And no one really understood it. They just didn’t know how to tell the story.”
Eötvös’ will be in Fort Worth to work with the FWO during rehearsals of Angels. Turning to the two traditional works programmed for the summer, Woods points to the “dream team” he has engaged for “Lucia:” Elizabeth Futral in the title role and brilliant, young tenor Stephen Costillo, who sings Edgardo. “It’s a signature role for Elizabeth,” Woods say, “and Stephen has sung Edgardo at the Met.” Woods considers Costrllo his “personal discovery.” “We engaged him as Rodolfo in ‘Boheme’ in ‘06,” Woods says. “He’s one of the most promising young tenors of today.”
\Woods finds it ironic — and regrettable — that although the FWO stages the McCammon Voice Competition, a leading program in the field, the company has never cast winners in its productions. That’s being corrected this summer when Iowa’s Elizabeth Bennett and Korean-born Dongwon Shin sing the title role and Calif in “Turandot.” “They have big, gorgeous Wagnerian voices,” Woods says. “And Shin sang Calif’s ’Nessun dorma’ for our competition. “They have both sung these roles several times elsewhere.”
“Angels in America” will be staged in the intimate Scott Theatre in Fort Worth‘s downtown theater district; the other three operas, in Bass Hall for the performing Ars, the major home of the Fort Worth Opera. The Forth Worth Opera Festival opens with Angels in America on My 18 and concludes with the final performance of Of Mice and Men on June 8. The company has arranged a number of concurrent events to focus attention on the subject matter of Angels in America.
Darren K. Woods
More Life: The Art & Science of AIDS, involves a multitude of Fort Worth organizations in a community wide effort to focus attention on the current U.S. AIDS epidemic. On the calendar are performing and visual arts events, along with educational programs from AIDS service organizations. Participating social service organizations include AIDS Outreach Center, AIDS Resources of Rural Texas, Tarrant County AIDS InterFaith Network and Samaritan House. The HBO production of Angels will also be shown during the festival.
For information on the Forth Worth Opera 2008 Festival and season tickets from $50 to $412 each and single tickets from $17 to $145, call 817-731-0726 or toll-free 1-877-396-7372 or visit www.fwopera.org.
Wes Blomster