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.

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RONALD L. DAVIS is professor of history at Southern Methodist
University. He is the author of A History of Opera in the 
American West, Opera in Chicago, and A History of Music 
in American Life (three volumes). He has contributed numerous
articles to Opera News, Opera, and Opera Quarterly. 
In addition, he has written six books on Hollywood, including 
The Glamour Factory (SMU, 1993).