A&E Season Preview 2023 – 2024: Take a Bow, Steinmetz Hall
Frida Kahlo’s life story takes Steinmetz Hall by storm this January as Opera Orlando presents Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s operatic celebration of the artist in Frida. Courtesy of Opera Orlando
Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts deserves a spotlight of its own this season for being recently honored by the monthly magazine Architectural Digest as being one of the 11 most beautiful theaters in the world, rubbing shoulders with the lofty likes of the Vienna State Opera, Australia’s Sydney Opera House and the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona.
So take a bow, Barton Myers, the California architect whose shrewd design for a gorgeous facility with state of the art flexibility is a generational wonder. It would be appropriate to give him and his hall a standing ovation at some point in the season.
Gabrie; Preisser, general director of Opera Orlando, would be happy to lead it.
Every cultural organization in Orlando that uses the hall owes Myers a debt of gratitude, but the debt that Preisser and company owe is existential: Preisser says the seven-year-old company’s meteoric success would simply not have happened as quickly as it did, had it not been for the opening of Steinmetz. “That was the game-changer,” said Preisser.
While we are at it here’s a look at that company’s 2023-24 Dr. Phillips season, arguably the most ambitious in its brief history. All save the last show are at Steinmetz.
Tosca: Puccini’s story about a diva’s efforts to save her lover’s life. Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 29 at 2 p.m.
Frida: A portrait of Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, with music by Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Jan. 26 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 28 at 2 p.m.
Lucia di Lammermoor: Gaetano Donizetti’s tale of a woman caught in a web of love, jealousy, betrayal and madness, played out on the mythical continent of Westeros as visualized in “Game of Thrones.” April 19 at 7:30 p.m. and April 21 at 2 p.m.
The Juniper Tree: A chamber opera by Philip Glass, Robert Moran, with Arthur Yorkinks, about a stepmother with an especially unsavory approach to murder. May 10 and 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater.
