Opera Chic

Fort Worth Opera Downsizes 2015 Playbill and Budget

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Like Lucchese cowboy boots and shotgun racks on Dodge Rams, what's Texas without the Fort Worth Opera?

Its general director Darren K. Woods -- who's been at the helm for 13 years and runs a tight ship that's solid on talent and loose on drama -- intends to keep it that way by shifting this year's 5.4 million budget to 4.5 million in 2015. The snip is in response to private donation downticks coupled with rising expenses.

Under the streamlined 2015 budget, the season playbill has been reduced to two operas. On the chopping black went the budget-busting 'A Wrinkle in Time', commissioned by the company and originally slated for a 2015 world premiere (after being dropped from the 2014 season). The opera, unable to lure a co-producer/partner to offset its 1.2 million dollar price-tag, has out-priced the FWO's wallet.

Orchestrated by Woods, the budget cut is intended to secure FWO's finances while sourcing new outlets of sustainable revenue (Texas oil?!) in the run-up to its 70th anniversary in 2016.

This year's season, which opens on April 19, includes the world premiere of Daniel Crozier's and Peter M. Krask’s With Blood, With Ink, costumes by Austin Scarlett (above), byotches!; Kevin Puts' and Mark Campbell’s Silent Night; The Pearl Fishers and Così fan tutte.

Anne Midgette Talks American Opera Companies, Highlights FWO's Before Night Falls

Music critic for The Washington Post, Anne Midgette, spoke to WQXR's "Arts File" about American opera companies who, despite the recession, have found innovative programs for their audiences. Among the hardy few (this year, Seattle Opera is doing Daron Hagne's Amelia & Minnesota Opera is apparently doing Ricky Ian Gordon's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), she cites The Fort Worth Opera's highly-anticipated new opera, Before Night Falls, which has been written and composed by Jorge Martin and is based on the autobiography of late Cuban writer, Reinaldo Arenas.

 

Young American baritone Wes Mason (photo above) will be singing the lead, the same character that put that delicious imported Spanish fillet, Javier Bardem, on the radar in Julian Schnabel's y2k movie of the same name.

You can find as many Before Night Falls videos as your heart desires on the Lone Star Opera website -- interviews with Wes "Javier Bar-damn!" Mason on the opera, as well as round-tables between Fort Worth Opera General Director Darren Woods and composer Jorge Martin.

 

Now we'd like to kindly request from FWO more media for Ovidio, sung by tenor Jesus Garcia (photo above) and for Victor, sung by Seth Mease Carico (photo below), the hot buttered rolls to Mason's luncheon meat. More like "Before Our Underwear Falls"!

 

The Midas Touch: Darren K. Woods & Fort Worth Opera

(Above: Darren K. Woods in all his screen-shot glory, where he made an appearance on "Good Morning Texas" a couple months ago to talk about Cenerentola with Isabel Leonard.)

General Director of Fort Worth Opera, Darren K. Woods, is featured in the July 2009 edition of Opera News. The native Texan moved into the role in 2001, and has magically kept (and is keeping) FWO immune & afloat in the scary financial crisis.

We could list all the initiatives that he's poured into the FWO & their singers, but we give him the most props for taking risks on new music, at times diametrically adverse to the Texas palate: Angels in America in 2008, Dead Man Walking in 2009, and the highly-anticipated Before Night Falls in 2010.

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*

Fort Worth Opera to Premiere "Before Night Falls" OMG PLEASE LET IT STAR JAVIER BARDEM!!!

Fort Worth Opera's 2010 Festival will boast one of the best movie/book spin-offs we've yet heard: Reinaldo Arenas's "Before Night Falls".

The opera, written and composed by Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín, is based on the the autobiography by the late great Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas.

This isn't the first time that Arenas's book has inspired, as it was the basis of the sumptuous full-of-win film by Opera Chic main man Julian Schnabel, staring omg Javier Bardem (luckily Benicio del Toro dropped out and we got that secksay slab of fillet, Bardem).

For help with the libretto, Martín turned to Dolores M. Koch, close friend of Arenas who also translates his books from Spanish to English.

Darren K. Woods, GM of the FWO, is a frikking genius. We're so looking forward to this, we're already dusting off our Luchese boots for Spring Break, 2010.

Opera Chic's only regret is that our own composer, maestro Carter Burwell, who did such a wonderful, heartbreaking job writing the film's score, has not been hired to take a crack at writing the opera.

Maestro Burwell's website generously allows to download some tracks from his scores. 

In the meantime, Javier Bardem best learn how to sing by Spring 2010, because we're basically not willing to settle for anyone less than the sizzling Spanish actor on that Texan stage.