Dallas Chamber Symphony Opens Eighth Season on October 22

If you know how excited I am about opera, my love for the Dallas Symphony should be no surprise! Dallas Chamber Symphony, led by Artistic Director and Conductor Richard McKay, will launch its eighth season with a dynamic concert, “Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto 2,” featuring works by three French composers. Celebrating its centenary this year, Maurice Ravel’s (1875-1937) neo-baroque orchestral suite (1919), Le Tombeau de Couperin, will start the program. Renowned pianist Christopher Goodpasture will then solo with orchestra on Camille Saint-Saëns’ (1835-1921) dramatic Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (1868). Francis Poulenc’s innovative and lively Sinfonietta (1947) concludes the program. Presented together, the works are demonstrative of the transformation of turn-of-the-twentieth century Parisian tastes from the conservativism of late-romantic Saint-Saëns, through the flexible, diplomatic and more modern Ravel, to the more free-spirited and avant-garde Poulenc.

Tickets and Event Listing

Dallas Chamber Symphony’s “Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto 2” concert, conducted by Richard McKay, will be held on Tuesday, October 22 at 8:00 p.m. at Moody Performance Hall located at 2520 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201. The concert runtime is 85 minutes, including intermission. Tickets are $19-$54 each. Season tickets, subscription packages, and student and senior discounts are available. Tickets may be purchased online at www.dcsymphony.org, by calling (214) 449-1294, or in the lobby the night of the event. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

#dallassymphonyorchestra #saintsaensdallas #pianoconcertdallas #datenightdallas

Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas presents CADD BUS TOUR November 2nd

It's time to explore some of the wonderful art Dallas has to offer with the experts - the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas! CADD is excited to announce the November 2nd Bus Tour hosted by CADD members Holly Johnson Gallery and Cris Worley Fine Arts at 1845 East Levee Street. Initiated in 2010, these popular bus tours offer participants unique access to Dallas’ most esteemed sites for contemporary art. Guests are provided light refreshments along the way and transported to each location on a private, luxury bus. Previous tours have included visits to the art collection of Cowboy’s AT&T Stadium, corporate art collections, architecturally significant homes and prestigious private collections, as well as many artist's studios. This bus tour is highly exclusive and limited to 20 guests - you will be visiting private homes and art collections so this is definitely an intimate experience! Tickets are $125 each and all proceeds help support CADD Bus Tour programming, the annual CADD Fund, and the CADD Scholarship awarded to a graduating senior from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. You can purchase tickets here.

The day will begin with an exclusive tour of the Deedie Rose Collection and The PumpHouse. The modern home was designed by architect, Antoine Predock. The collection focuses on European, Latin American and American contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on Latin America. It also includes an extensive contemporary artist jewelry collection. Artists on view include Janine Antoni, Louise Bourgeois, Jeppe Hein, Jim Hodges, Liz Larner, Gordon Matta-Clark, Juan Muñoz, Gabriel Orozco, Damián Ortega, Richard Serra, Mira Schendel, Meg Webster, and Lawrence Weiner. Originally a pump station supplying water to the Township of Highland Park, The PumpHouse is now a space for art.

The bus tour will continue on to view the art collection and home of Newt Walker and Ashley Tatum.The Walker/Tatum art collection is a blend of both individuals’ memories of the past and hopes for the future. They love nature and have hobbies that enable each of them to spend quality time in the great outdoors. They are fond of wildlife and have concerns about environmental conservation and often these beliefs are visible in their art, whether realist or abstract. Humor, beauty and inspiration are favored over political or Noir themes.

The Bus Tour will conclude with gallery tours and light refreshments at your host galleries. At Cris Worley Fine Arts you will view two exhibitions; Harry Geffert (1934 - 2017): The Paper Works, a rare glimpse into Geffert’s exploration of dimensional cast paper sculptures and Steven Charles: Sewn to the Sky, featuring several new large-scale paintings, works on paper, and a rare sculpture. At Holly Johnson Gallery you will view two exhibitions as well; Kim Cadmus Owens: Forced Perspective, including recent paintings, digital paintings and sculptures, drawings and prints by the Dallas Based artist and William Steiger: Inventor, a solo show of paintings and collages that speaks to the artist’s ongoing fascination with the ‘Age of Invention’.

The November 2nd Bus Tour begins at 9:30 a.m.

Please park and hop on the bus (1845 East Levee Street)

The bus will depart promptly at 9:45 a.m. (please don't be late or they might leave without you...)

#cadd #contemporaryartdealersofdallas #arttourdallas

The Magic Flute Opens October 18th – Free Simulcast on Friday, November 1, 2019

Photo by Karen Almond​

Are you ready for a big dose of culture? The Dallas Opera opens its 2019-2020 "Standing Ovation" Season on a high note this Friday with The Linda and Mitch Hart Season Opening Night Performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final operatic masterpiece,The Magic Flute. The October 18, 2019 performance in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center will begin at 8:00 p.m. (note the special curtain time) with subsequent performances at the usual times. As always, you'll catch me at the opening, and if you can't make it, visit my Instagram @czarina_ekaterina for an insider view on the show and after-party!

Conducted by Emmanuel Villaume (The Mrs. Eugene McDermott Music Director of The Dallas Opera) and directed by Kyle Lang (Ann Stuart Stage Director) in his company debut, The Eleanor Ford Penrose Mainstage Production boasts a superb international cast of singers who have captivated audiences from the Kennedy Center to Covent Garden.

Italian tenor Paolo Fanale and American soprano Andrea Carroll will make their house debuts as the spirited romantic leads, Tamino and Pamina, braving trials and separations in order to find love, wisdom and happiness together, at long last.

This production, originally directed by the late Sir Peter Hall, was designed by British cartoonist and illustrator extraordinaire, Gerald Scarfe, best known for a half century of scathing political cartoons for The Sunday Times and for directing and designing the animation sequence for Pink Floyd’s film and concert versions of The Wall. Mr. Scarfe has designed sets and costumes for opera companies from Seattle to New Zealand, as well as creating numerous books, exhibits, and acclaimed one-man shows. You know I'm a huge fan of Mozart, and The Magic Flute is sure to be an incredible experience for opera-lovers and newcomers alike! I would love to see you there this Friday!

This eighteenth-century masterpiece premiered in Vienna in 1791, and mixes popular song with show-stopping coloratura and a lilting touch of glockenspiel. Translation: you'll love it.

Tickets for Mozart’s The Magic Flute may be purchased by phone (214.443.1000), online (www.dallasopera.org) or at the door, starting at just $19. I encourage you to buy tickets online to skip lines and save some time!

And if you can't make it, you can see it for free! The Dallas Opera will present a free live simulcast of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at beautiful Klyde Warren Park. This special presentation takes place in the Dallas Arts District on Friday, November 1, 2019 (curtain time - 7:30 p.m.) and is open to all.

The fun begins at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, November 1st with popular radio host Amy Bishop of WRR, "Classical 101" and Kristian Roberts, Education Administrator for The Dallas Opera. Activities include a trivia contest, behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast, and the high-definition screening of a 1950 classic cartoon, Rabbit of Seville (courtesy of WB Classics), directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. This short was voted #12 of the 50 all-time greatest cartoons ever created, in a survey of animation industry professionals. The cartoon also "tips the hat" to our engaging season finale, The Barber of Seville (April 24th through May 10, 2020), Rossini’s hilarious comic masterpiece.

Just so you have time to park and get situated - please arrive well before 7:30!

The 2019 Magic Flute Simulcast is made possible in part by The Enrico Foundation with additional support provided by Texas Instruments.

If you're an opera junkie or want to impress your date/friend, read on to learn more about the acclaimed cast and crew!

Italian tenor Paolo Fanale and American soprano Andrea Carroll will make their house debuts as the spirited romantic leads, Tamino and Pamina, braving trials and separations in order to find love, wisdom and happiness together, at long last.

“Tamino demands a beautiful voice that radiates youthful ardor,” wrote Harper’s Bazaar, “and you’ll hear it from this ‘heart-throb Italian tenor (Paolo Fanale).” Meanwhile, Opera News noted that Miss Carroll is “a favorite of the Vienna State Opera, (lauded for her) vibrant soprano (with its) rich, low register and gleaming top.”

American soprano Jeni Houser will account for several of the performance’s high notes as the majestic Queen of the Night. She, too, earned exceptional praise from Opera News for her “focused expressive high soprano…nailing her killer Act II showpiece.”

The role of Papageno, a comic tour-de-force, marks the eagerly-awaited house debut of baritone Sean Michael Plumb, whose “elegant lyricism and responsive musicality” (The New York Times) have made this award-winning California native a welcome presence on many of the world’s most prestigious stages.

Dallas Opera favorite Morris Robinson, an American bass last seen on the Winspear stage as The Commendatore in our acclaimed 2018 spring production of Don Giovanni, “dominates the stage…with his firm, opulent tone that seems to pour forth from another world” (The Classical Review). He returns in the role of the mysterious Sarastro.

Casting the roles of the First, Second, and Third Lady is about choosing complementary voices capable of creating one of the great trios in opera. The Dallas Opera indulged in “luxury casting” across the board: The First Lady will be sung by American soprano Diana Newman, the Second Lady by American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey (The Charron and Peter Denker Rising Star), and the Third Lady by American contralto Hannah Ludwig – all in their TDO debuts.

The troubled Monastatos, will be portrayed by character tenor Brian Frutiger with soprano Abigail Rethwisch as the charming Papagena and bass David Pittsinger as The Speaker.

Rounding out this outstanding cast are the First, Second and Third Boy sung by Keiland Holleman, Lukas Palys, and Michael Blumenthal, respectively.

The First Man in Armor will be sung by Aaron Short. Ryan Kuster will portray the Second Man in Armor. Sam Parkinson appears in the role of the First Priest, with Michael Christopher as the Second Priest.