Fort Worth Opera announces return to year-round programs, schedule for 75th season

Fort Worth Opera this month announced that, after 14 years of producing a nationally recognized springtime festival, the organization is returning to a year-round format and looking to expand its presence and visibility in the North Texas arts scene.

Fort Worth Opera also this month announced repertory, casting and live performances for its landmark 75th anniversary season in 2021-2022. The season begins Oct. 9 with Entre Amigos, an Hispanic Heritage Month concert at Artes de la Rosa Cultural Center for the Arts at the Rose Marine Theater, followed by pop-up FWO GO community concerts held throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The autumn season culminates in a Fall Preview concert at Firestone and Robertson Distillery Co. — Whiskey Ranch.

Fort Worth Opera will partner with the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas in December for Holiday in the Garden, and in January, the organization will unveil the world premiere of Héctor Armienta’s Zorro to kick off the New Year at the Rose Marine Theater and Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium.

The company revives its immensely successful Black History Month concert, A Night of Black Excellence, live at Fort Worth’s I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA in February. Then the watershed season concludes with the Diamond Anniversary Gala, an intimate chamber realization of Verdi’s La Traviata with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at Bass Performance Hall, and the annual Lesley Resident Artists Recital Series.

Fort Worth Opera’s General Director Afton Battle noted that over the last year, FWO “has redefined two things: what it means to be an opera company and what it means to serve our community. Through innovative programs, initiatives, partnerships and collaborations, FWO has expanded our reach and widened our community footprint. And it was that growth that helped determine our performing priorities for the 21/22 season.

“Fort Worth Opera will return this upcoming season as ‘The People’s Company,’ focusing more on concerts and performances in the community and building strong relationships with other arts and civic organizations,” Battle continued. “During this period while performing arts organizations have been on pause, a lot has changed. But one thing remains the same: The people of Fort Worth can count on FWO to deliver the highest quality of the classical performing arts, both in Bass Hall and throughout our community.”

Artistic Direct Joe Illick added, “Fort Worth and the world have changed a lot since 1947 when Fort Worth Opera began. But telling meaningful stories through great music and extraordinary voices is as powerful as ever. For more than 400 years, opera has forged ahead, broken old conventions, crossed boundaries, and shown people what they look like at their best and their worst. But always singing at their best!

“FWO is committed to the highest standards of musical and dramatic excellence, and our programming this season reaches into every part of the community,” Illick said. “We feel confident that the community will see themselves represented and reflected on our stages and feel empowered and inspired by our performances.”

Fall Performances

• FWO’s fall performances begin with Entre Amigos (Among Friends), a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, at the Rose Marine Theater; Saturday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. This is an all-star concert co-curated by opera singers Vanessa Becerra, Claudia Chapa and Luis Alejandro Orozco. They will be joined by award-winning tenor Rafael Moras, Columbian virtuoso pianist Eduardo Rojas and Mariachi ensemble Trio Chapultepec from San Antonio. The concert will include a mix of arias, art songs, boleros, zarzuela romanzas and traditional rancheras by Mexican composers María Grever, José Alfredo Jiménez, Agustín Lara, Daniel Catán and Juan Pablo Contreras. Following the concert, in the adjacent Gallery of Artes de la Rosa, rock/pop musician and DJ Ronnie Heart spins music, letting attendees dance the evening away and enjoy delicious handmade baked Argentine empanadas and desserts catered by Del Campo Empanadas.
• The company’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration continues with encore presentations of composer Joe Illick and Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell’s children’s opera with puppets, Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas on an outdoor stage, Oct. 9 and 10 at 2 p.m., and at the Reby Cary Youth Library on Saturday, Oct.16, at 2 p.m. Based upon the cherished book by English author and illustrator Laurence Anholt, FWO’s charming work follows the real-life story of Marianna Morillo Safa and her friendship with famed painter Frida Kahlo.
• Illick and Campbell’s second children’s opera, Stone Soup, which premiered in November 2020 with Fort Worth Opera, returns for a third live performance on Saturday, Nov. 20, at 2 p.m. at the Northwest Branch of the Fort Worth Public Library.
• Fort Worth Opera is partnering with the Fort Worth Public Library this fall to present the FWO GO Concert Series across the city at various branches, including East Fort Worth, Meadowbrook and Golden Triangle. These 30-minute pop-up community concerts feature opera arias, musical theater hits and timeless standards from the Great American Songbook performed by the 2021-2022 FWO Lesley Resident Artists, baritone Brandon Bell and sopranos Gabrielle Gilliam and Megan Koch. Dates, times, and locations will be announced later.
• Fall programming concludes with the 75th Anniversary Fall Preview at Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co. — Whiskey Ranch on Nov. 6 at 6 p.m., featuring globally-acclaimed tenor Russell Thomas making his Fort Worth Opera debut with soprano Elaine Alvarez, mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Paz and baritone Spencer Reichman. The event will feature an open bar with craft cocktails and hors d’oeuvres catered by award-winning Fort Worth chef Juan Rodriguez, owner of Magdalena’s and star of the Food Network’s Chopped and Top Chef.

Winter performances

• Winter programming begins in December with FWO’s annual partnership with the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas for Holiday in the Garden. The Lesley Resident Artists and members of FWO’s Studio Artists program — Meredith Browning, Autumn Capocci, Christopher Curcuruto, Lwazi Hlati, Prosper Makhanya, Kayla Nanto, Ndumiso Nyoka and Erica Vernice Simmons — will perform a set of holiday favorites on a stage in the parking lot between the two venues. This multi-event collaboration will feature FWO’s concert, a Christmas Tree Farm, an artisan market with food trucks, a visit from Santa Claus and a high holiday tea.
• The 2021-2022 season marks the fourth year of Noches de Ópera, FWO’s celebration of Spanish-language operas and Latino(a) culture, heritage and artistry. The company will premiere composer-librettist Héctor Armienta’s masked avenger opera, Zorro, in two performances at the Rose Marine Theater on Jan. 26 and 28 at 7 p.m., and a final show, in collaboration with the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, at Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium on Sunday, Jan. 30, at 5:30 p.m. Located in the heart of Fort Worth’s Cultural District, the 85-year-old, 2,856-seat Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium was the original home of Fort Worth Opera for more than 40 years. Based on the pulp fiction novels of American writer Johnston McCulley, this new work is led by visionary stage director Octavio Cardenas and stars tenor César Delgado as Zorro/Diego de la Vega, mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Paz, soprano Gabriella Enríquez and baritone Octavio Moreno. The cast also includes mezzo-soprano Bridget Cappel, baritone Brandon Bell and lyric soprano Judith Rodriguez. Accompanying the singers will be Charlene Lotz, FWO head of music and music director for the Children’s Opera Theatre, on the piano and guitarist Christopher McGuire, president and artistic director of the Fort Worth Classic Guitar Society. Audiences will have the option of purchasing individual tickets or the full Fort Worth Stock Show Experience Package, which includes a 2 p.m, matinee of the FWSSR Pro Rodeo Tournament, followed by a 4 p.m. dinner at Reata at the Backstage Club of Will Rogers Coliseum and the 5:30 p.m. performance of Zorro.

• FWO presented its inaugural celebration of Black History Month, A Night of Black Excellence: Past, Present, and Future this past February as a virtual concert, and it was the most successful event of the 2020-2021 season. The co;ncert returns in 2022 with live performances at Fort Worth’s historic I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA on Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. Metropolitan Opera superstar soprano Karen Slack returns to FWO to co-curate this concert with Battle. It will feature arias and songs exclusively by Black and Afro-Latino(a) composers, and will be held within the 900-seat auditorium at I.M. Terrell, the city’s first Black school. Details about the concert will be announced at a later date.

Spring Performances

• Fort Worth Opera’s Diamond Anniversary Gala will be held April 6 at 6 p.m. in the grand ballroom of the City Club Fort Worth, with performances by soprano Elaine Alvarez, Grand Prize Winner of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition, lyric tenor Nathan Granner, founding member of The American Tenors and baritone Kenneth Overton, who will make his Metropolitan Opera debut this as Lawyer Frazier in Porgy and Bess and who will appear with the National Philharmonic as a featured soloist in the world premiere of composer Adolphus Hailstork’s Requiem Cantata, A Knee on The Neck next year. They will be accompanied by FWO Artistic Director Joe Illick at the piano. More details will be announced after the first of the year.
• Fort Worth Opera celebrates more seven decades of performances in North Texas by paying homage to the its first production, on Nov. 25, 1946: Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, performed 75 years ago to a sold-out house at the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium. Last seen by local audiences during the company’s 2015 Festival, La Traviata returns to the grand stage of Bass Performance Hall on April 22, at 7 p.m. and April 24 at 2 p.m., with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Director, choreographer, and opera librettist John de los Santos leads an emotionally gripping, 90-minute chamber realization of the opera reimagined through a contemporary lens, with a unique sculptural aesthetic courtesy of set designer and sculptor Liliana Duque Piñeiro and visual artist and costume designer Ashley Soliman and lighting by FWO Resident Designer Chad R. Jung. The cast features Cuban-American soprano Elaine Alvarez, tenor Nathan Granner, baritone Kenneth Overton, baritone Brandon Bell, soprano Gabrielle Gilliam, soprano Megan Koch, mezzo-soprano Kayla Nanto, mezzo-soprano Autumn Capocci, bass-baritone Prosper Makhanya tenor Lwazi Hlati.
• Fort Worth Opera’s 75th anniversary season will conclude in May with the FWO Lesley Resident Artist Recital, featuring sopranos Gabrielle Gilliam and Megan Koch and baritone Brandon Bell. Tickets for this concert will go on sale in April of 2022.

For the latest Fort Worth Opera news throughout the company’s 2021-2022 season, visit www.fwopera.org.