Opera Chic

Wes Mason as Reinaldo Arenas in Fort Worth Opera's "Before Night Falls" FOR THE WIN!

Last November, Opera Chic heard about Fort Worth Opera's intention to operafy Reinaldo Arenas's autobiography "Before Night Falls" for their 2010 Summer Festival, and she's been looking forward to the latest developments since.

Today we hear that lead Reinaldo Arenas will be portrayed by the young American baritone, Wes Mason (yummy headshot above).

Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín's new opera is based on the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, and was fabulously portrayed by Javier Bardem in Julian Schnabel's 2000 movie, "Before Night Falls". The opera will premiere in late May, 2010.

Hawt Man Walking: Daniel Okulitch in Fort Worth

(Daniel Okulitch as Joseph De Rocher in Dead Man Walking. Photo: Trudie Lee courtesy Calgary Opera)

Fort Worth opera, that little gem in north-west Texas, will this month launch their 2009 Opera Festival. Sandwiched between crowd-pleasers Carmen and Cenerentola comes Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, featuring Daniel Okulitch as death row inmate, Joseph De Rocher. As if there wasn't reason enough to catch a glimpse Okulitch's rising star, the performance comes with a caution via the FWO website stating, "Contains nudity and adult situations". Don't do the crime if you can't do the time!

Dead Man Walking is American composer Jake Heggie's first opera (libretto by ~kiss of the spider woman~ Terrence McNally), based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, is about her time spent with death row inmates in Louisiana in the 1980s.

The death row, convicted murderer Joseph De Rocher is sung by Canadian bass baritone, Daniel Okulitch, etched-up with tattoos (but we're frankly hoping Texas will omit the drawn-on swastika like the one used at the 2006 Calgary Opera shown above). Joining Okulitch and his boxer-briefs is Robynne Redmon as Sister Helen Prejean and Sheryl Woods as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher. The FWO performance opens on May 2 and then repeats on May 10.

Daniel, we can't take our gaze off that secksay scar, and are wondering if you sustained it on death row from being shanked, or it was just a nasty case of appendicitis. *prays for shanking anecdote*

Get Out UR Flip-Flops and Shorts: Summer Festivals Are Already Heating Up

USA Today (News Lite) is running an article on the "world's best opera festivals", focusing on Summer opera bashes both on native soil and abroad.

"[...] as any true opera aficionado will tell you, there's no better way to indulge the habit than by scoring a seat at one of the great outdoor music festivals. Sure, no one can deny the drama of attending an opera at, say, La Scala, even when a famous tenor like Roberto Alagna doesn't storm off the stage in the middle of a performance (as he did in 2006), or trembling in anticipation as soprano Renee Fleming infuses La Traviata with her singular velvet touch at the Paris Opera. But there's a world of sublime sounds out there, and it pays to plan ahead."

More like the *beginning* of the performance, Anthony. To save you precious reading time, here's who made the cut: Savonlinna Opera Festival, Santa Fe Opera, the Lucerne Festival, the Wexford Festival Opera, Tanglewood, Salzburger Festspiele, the Glyndebourne Festival, Chorégies d'Orange, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Bregenzer Festspiele, and the Arena di Verona Festival.

Snubbed this year (among many other worthies) was Glimmerglass and Pesaro's Rossini Opera Festival [edit: omg, how could I have forgotten the Fort Worth Opera Festival??] Also snubbed were my Carroll Gardens cousins who do the entire Gilbert & Sullivan repertoire in their backyard in August, on a stage made from a discarded wooden halfpipe some sk8r kids left rotting on their curb. They use my grandma's old mumu kaftan dresses for a curtain, and the ushers are the neighborhood dogs with flashlights taped to their paws. OC is serious. So, which are your favorites?