For the first time in its history, the company will launch its season with a world premiere, the HGO-commissioned opera Intelligence, co-created by superstar American composer Jake Heggie, librettist Gene Scheer, and director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, 2021 MacArthur Fellow and founder of Urban Bush Women, the galvanizing Brooklyn-based dance company centering the voices of Black women.
World Premiere of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly & More Set for Dallas Opera 2023/2024 Season
"We are thrilled to bring three new-to-Dallas productions and a long-awaited world premiere to our audiences, both near and far, in the 2023/2024 Mainstage Season," said General Director and CEO Ian Derrer. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the remarkable true story of a man whose determination leads to one of the most poignant memoirs ever written. We are honored to bring this story to our stage for the first time anywhere..."
Pulling at heartstrings: 'Violins of Hope' live at Kohl Mansion
The world premiere of Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope, by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, forms the powerful center of the new Pentatone release . . . emotionally devastating and cathartic.Announcing the CD release of Violins of Hope.
He Called His Song ‘American Anthem.’ It Actually Became One.
In his inaugural address, President Biden quoted Gene Scheer’s song, a patriotic hymn championed by the opera star Denyce Graves and recorded by Norah Jones for a Ken Burns soundtrack.Read the full feature article in The New York Times about the history of this beloved song.
Denyce Graves, one of Justice Ginsburg’s favorite opera singers, performs for her one last time.
Justice Ginsburg was a passionate opera fan from her youth, and one of her favorite singers, the American mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, sang for her one last time on Friday at the Capitol ceremony. Ms. Graves, her voice reverberating off the marble of Statuary Hall, performed the spiritual “Deep River” and Gene Scheer’s “American Anthem.”
Jamie Barton and Jake Heggie Blaze Forth in Unexpected Shadows
Parsing which is more sensational, the artistry or the music, is beyond the point. Unexpected Shadows (Pentatone), the all-Heggie recital from mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, composer/pianist Jake Heggie, and cellist Matt Haimovitz, is destined to win multiple “Best Vocal Recital of the Year” awards as it makes the best possible case for the necessity and relevance of modern American classical song.
Violins of Hope West Coast Debut Hailed a Success!
Violins of Hope West Coast Debut Hailed a Success!World Premiere of Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope, a Music at Kohl Mansion commissioned work by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, given five different debut performances in Burlingame, San Jose and San Francisco; live performance recorded for future release on Pentatone.
These musical instruments survived the Holocaust. Now they honor the musicians who did not.
The centerpiece of the instruments’ residency is the premiere of “Intonations,” Heggie’s song cycle, written to a libretto by Gene Scheer for mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke with violinist Daniel Hope and a string quartet drawn from the Opera Orchestra. Each song represents the voice of a different violin, telling its own story.
Conquering Everest and Aleko: Chicago Opera Theater's bold study of contrasts
. . . Everest keeps melodramatic impulses at bay and controlled psychological tension ultimately saturates the scenario.
Chicago Opera Theater scales the heights with “Everest,” “Aleko”
There are a myriad of reasons why an operatic adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air should not work. And yet it does. Composer Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer have crafted a compelling 70-minute opera adapted from Krakauer’s nonfiction account of the disastrous 1996 Everest season in which eight people died.