High Cs in Big D

Like any young, red-blooded opera impresario, Lawrence Kelly wanted to start his own company. So, with the determined air of a wing commander plotting an air strike, he holed up with a map of the U.S. and a compass to zero in on a likely site. He began by eliminating those cities that already had a company as well as those towns whose proximity would mean strong competition at the box office. Detroit was out because it was too close to Chicago and the climate was not to Kelly's liking; Pittsburgh was no good because, in his estimation, it was not culturally ready. Suddenly, there it was: Dallas--hot climate, lots of loose money floating around, an unquenchable cultural thirst. Perfect. How could he fail to strike a gusher in the land of the big oilwell?

Latest First. What he struck was a deeply embedded vein of indifference. The first hint came when he announced auditions for the chorus of the new Dallas Civic Opera; instead of the expected stampede, only 32 singers showed up, and most of them were shower-room Carusos. The real blow, though, was his fund-raising gala, featuring Maria Callas. It sold only 30% of the 4,100 seats in the State Fair Music Hall. On the following night, the company opened with an excellent performance of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri--and got much the same box office results. Kelly was dumfounded. "The response was so bad," he recalls, "that the only possible thing to do was go right ahead and plan a second season before anybody could stop us."

That was in 1957, and there has been no stopping since. Last week the Dallas Civic Opera celebrated its tenth anniversary with a season that is already 90% sold out. Kelly's winning formula: high-quality productions with big-name singers and the best young talent available. Highlight of the company's new production of Macbeth last week was the performance of Welsh Soprano Gwyneth Jones. A tall, flame-haired import from London's Covent Garden, she was a marvelously malevolent partner for Baritone Mario Zanasi as Macbeth, repeatedly thrilled the audience with her heroic, ringing voice. Jones's appearance marked her U.S. debut, and is the latest in a long string of firsts for the Dallas Civic Opera. The company, in fact, like its older cousins in San Francisco and Chicago, has introduced so many topflight opera singers to the U.S.--among them Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, Jon Vickers--that its productions are like previews of what will be heard later at the Met.

Though the company mounted several fine productions during its first few seasons, there was grumbling about Kelly's slick Northern ways, about "buying foreign" and "squandering" money on opera. Salvation came in the form of two Dallas millionaires with the unlikely names of James Bond, now president, and Henry Miller, chairman of the board. From their pockets and those of friends, they corralled enough contributions to help the company through its financial crises.

Whoopdedoo. Today, the company is bristling with energy. The Women's. Board, for example, raises about $50,000 a year from its social events, while other committees stage such a fund-raising whoopdedoo as the Fiestas al Tiros, pigeon shoots for the ladies run by a trio of wealthy socialites known as "the pigeon girls." What Kelly is shooting for is a new opera house. Because of the cramped backstage conditions of the music hall, he has to store his scenery in a tent pitched outside the auditorium, holds rehearsals in churches, hotel ballrooms and warehouses scattered all over town. Operagoers filing into the lobby of the music hall last week were confronted with life-size cutouts of opera officials with balloon captions, one showing the pigeon girls pleading "Even Shreveport has an opera house. Why not Dallas?"

Kelly, 38, a former real estate salesman, is also director of the Performing Arts Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., where he has staged two successful operas. But his heart is deep in Texas where at last, he says, he feels secure. "We didn't even have a fund-raising campaign this year," he says happily. "You can't take a risk like that if you're not in solid in your community."

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