The Dallas Opera is making its post-pandemic comeback this fall with a season including works from classic composers like Mozart and Verdi. Though the opera has been putting on productions for the past year, the coming season aims to bring back subscribers who have been away during the pandemic.
Ian Derrer, The Dallas Opera's General Director and CEO, said this season's lack of modern or contemporary opera is part of their balance.
"We have a modern opera this [last] season. I can tell you that the plans for future seasons include that, but we're not necessarily looking at it as a balance per season, but over many seasons," Derrer said.
Forthcoming productions, including Rigoletto and Hansel and Gretel, are classic works that have not been performed in Dallas in over a decade in some cases.
"One of the things that we're trying to do coming out of the pandemic, what we really are looking at is kind of how to build back subscribers," Derrer said. "And we know that this kind of repertoire is something that really is what is very, very, very much needed and loved by this audience".
If these composers are the greatest-hitmakers of opera, the selections are their deeper cuts.
"Part of the repertoire, those four titles are not the most obvious icons of these composers," said Emmanuel Villaume, The Dallas Opera's Music Director. "Of all the Mozart opera [...] Così fan tutte is not the most performed one and not the most obvious box office choice," Villaume said.
Here's the lineup:
Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi, opens Oct. 8
Treachery, seduction, and a raging father dead set on revenge.
Hansel and Gretel, by Engelbert Humperdinck, opens October 28th
The classic fairy tale.
Das Rheingold, by Richard Wagner, opens Feb. 10, 2023
The first opera of Wagner's Ring Cycle tells the story of a cursed ring with unfathomable power.
Così fan tutte, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, opens March 24th, 2023.
Derrer said this new production of Così will address issues of misogyny.
"This production lends itself to the feeling that the women have always had the upper hand, and they still get it in the end," Derrer said. "So it's particularly different from the last one that we did with John Cox, I would say".
This season also features family shows The Billy Goats Gruff and The Elixir of Love, as well as soprano Ying Fang in recital.
The season begins October 1st, with a free "People's Choice" concert. Details about that show are still to come.
To view show dates and purchase tickets, visit dallasopera.org.