New Orleans has a long history as a venue for opera.
Each performing arts season carries a particular thrill: who’s coming this year? What notes will they hit? How high will they leap? Less immediate is the satisfaction of an arts tradition further enriched, until you hit the big milestones:
• The 2017—2018 calendar marks seventy-five years for the New Orleans Opera Association, which was founded in 1943. The ties extend a fair bit further back than that, with the May 22, 1796, staging of André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain establishing New Orleans as “America’s first city of opera.” The season opens this year with “love, betrayal, and tango” in Astor Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires, in which audience members will be gifted with a milonga, or tango dance party, following the September 9 & 10 performances. neworleansopera.org.
• The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s River City Jazz Masters, which draws performers of national and international acclaim, blew out ten candles last year. This year brings a new dimension to the annual series, with a Hall of Distinction to honor notable Louisiana musicians and ambassadors to jazz music. The first inductions, of clarinetist Alvin Batiste and jazz dee-jay Zia Tammami, on October 18, coincides with a performance from Victor Goines. artsbr.org.
.jpg)