La Scala West: The Dallas Opera under Kelly and Rescigno
by Ronald L. Davis
Category: Music

In this lavishly illustrated volume, Ronald L. Davis tells the story of a regional opera company that won international recognition with dazzling productions during its first season and sustained the attention of opera lovers around the world for nearly two decades. In the late 1950s in Dallas, Texas, general manager Lawrence Kelly and artistic director Nicola Rescigno envisioned gorgeous music for the eye and ear. Their intent was to breathe new life into the traditional Italian and French repertory and to spice it with offerings of American premieres of lesser-known works. Although the fledgling company's seasons were short, they were "production for production" of a quality to match those staged in the finest opera houses in the world. In 1958, Maria Callas, the company's first prima donna, gave a towering performance as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata and that same year, in her only American performances of Medea, gave an interpretation of the title role worthy of Euripides. The Dallas Opera's roster of American debuts in its initial decades includes Joan Sutherland, Jon Vickers, Teresa Berganza, Placido Domingo, and Montserrat Caballé. In addition to recruiting the best singers from around the globe, Kelly and Rescigno imported an upcoming generation of European stage designers and directors, among them such now recognized giants as Franco Zeffirelli and Peter Hall. Long before most opera management gave much attention to lighting a stage creatively, they scouted the contemporary Broadway theater to enlist the talents of such lighting designers as Jean Rosenthal and Tharon Musser. Supported by a small group of civic-minded business leaders, the Dallas Opera during its early seasons was perhaps as close as the United States has ever come to having court opera, a modern extension of the jewel-box operas performed in the palaces of Louis XIV and Catherine the Great. Rather than imitate what patrons could see at the Metropolitan in New York, Kelly and Rescigno looked to Europe, and especially to Italy and its singers and artists from the world-renowned opera house in Milan. With their visionary fervor and meticulously crafted productions, Lawrence Kelly and Nicola Rescigno launched "La Scala West," a regional opera company that set the standard for many companies in the decades to come.