Dallas Opera Hosts MAGIC FLUTE Screening at Cowboys Stadium Tonight

The Dallas Opera, in partnership with Cowboys Stadium, announces that more than 21,000 tickets to the Dallas Opera's April 28th Cowboys Stadium Simulcast have been requested by opera lovers from throughout Texas and 23 additional states. Ticket requests have also come in from the District of Columbia and Canada, since the joint announcement was made one month ago on January 26th at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Additional data collected from those making ticket requests indicate that, as of today, 93% of participating households have no previous purchasing history with the Dallas Opera. For many, the Cowboys Stadium Simulcast will mark their first, live experience of the art form in any venue.

Gene Jones (the wife of Dallas Cowboys Owner, President and General Manager Jerry Jones), whose vision led to the Stadium's museum-quality collection of contemporary art, set the stage for the announcement explaining, "Sports and art are not typically thought of as belonging together. Yet sporting events and great art do something similar-they get people talking."

An additional five thousand reserved seats will be made available to area schools and student groups as part of the Dallas Opera's newly expanded educational efforts.

Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE will be simulcast live tonight, April 28, 2012 at 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:00 PM) at the high-tech home of the Dallas Cowboys at One Legends Way in Arlington, Texas. Patrons will be able to enjoy a complete, unabridged live performance on the world's largest high-definition video board structure, comprised of four massive viewing screens (the largest, 72 feet tall and 160 feet wide) suspended directly above the playing field.

Reserved seating is still available (up to 10 seats per person) through the Dallas Opera website at www.dallasopera.org/cowboys.

"We are excited to partner with the Dallas Opera on such a distinctive event," said Dallas Cowboys Executive Vice President of Brand Management Charlotte Anderson. "Our organization admires and respects The Dallas Opera's original thinking and stewardship in making a ground-breaking event like this a reality. We truly value the importance of the arts in our community, and we hope that this first-of-its-kind opera broadcast gives us a way of sharing our love of the arts with a new audience at Cowboys Stadium."

"One of the goals of the Dallas Opera is to bring great singing and world-class theater to the widest possible audience," explained Dallas Opera General Director and CEO Keith Cerny. "As part of our commitment to expanding our community outreach we are thrilled to announce an unprecedented, 'game-changing' collaboration with the Cowboys organization. Let me also say that the Dallas Opera is especially grateful for the generous support of the Jones Family, encouraging our efforts to create one of the most unique and memorable events in the history of this opera company.

"I hope that the centralized location of Cowboys Stadium will draw music and theater lovers from all across North Texas to this free simulcast of Mozart's action-packed masterpiece," Mr. Cerny adds, "especially those who, for a variety of reasons, have perceived opera as an intimidating or challenging art form, rather than the fantastic entertainment experience it is."

THE MAGIC FLUTE will star soprano Ava Pine, the Dallas Opera's very first Resident Young Artist, in the role of Pamina. Ms. Pine, a Baroque specialist with a local fan base, made her Dallas Opera debut as Anna in Dallas Opera's 2006 production of Nabucco, and has appeared on their stage in numerous roles including Adele in Die Fledermaus, Zozo in The Merry Widow, Elvira in L'italiana in Algeri, the Slave in Salome and, most recently, as one of three featured artists in the Dallas Opera's Family Concert, performed in the Winspear last November.

Ava Pine's performance is made possible with support from The Charron and Peter Denker Rising Stars Endowment Fund.

Alongside Ms. Pine, the Dallas Opera has cast tenor Shawn Mathey as Tamino. "He is simply one of the finest Mozartean tenors in the world," explains Artistic Director Jonathan Pell "and we have spent years trying to tempt him to come to Dallas for his long-awaited debut on our stage. I think audiences will find him absolutely thrilling, from his first note to his last."

Mr. Mathey's 2011-12 Season engagements have included debuts with San Francisco Opera as Don Ottavio and with Rome's Teatro dell'Opera as Lysander in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is also slated to record Bruckner's Mass No. 3 in F minor with Marek Janowski conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romand. 

"This production from Lyric Opera of Chicago," says Mr. Pell, "is the most magical Magic Flute I've ever experienced. It's been revived there, time and again, because it's so immensely popular but it's a production that could never have been done in our previous performance venue.