Ticket revenues were down, but total attendance was up slightly last season. New partnerships and outreach programs attracted nearly 3,000 first-time patrons. The annual campaign and other contributions exceeded $5.9 million, and the Dallas Opera Ball grossed a record-breaking $490,350.
The Dallas Opera will mark its 50th anniversary next season with its first-ever stagings of Verdi's Nabucco, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Puccini's La rondine and Wagner's Lohengrin. The 2006-07 season will also include a non-subscription concert performance, on January 17, 2007, of Bart‹k's Bluebeard's Castle starring mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. The season opens on November 10, 2006, with Nabucco, in a new production directed by James Robinson, the artistic director of Opera Colorado. Dallas Opera music director Graeme Jenkins conducts.