The Dallas Opera Announces Two-Time Tony® Award-Nominee Robert Brill as Scenic Designer for the April 2010 World Premiere of Moby-Dick

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The Dallas Opera has announced that Robert Brill has signed on as scenic designer for the world premiere production of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Moby-Dick, scheduled for April 30, 2010 at the new Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts (now under construction). This is to be the Dallas Opera debut of Mr. Brill, a two-time Tony® Award-nominee.

“The Dallas Opera is extremely fortunate to be able to engage the services of this highly accomplished and much-in-demand designer,” says the company’s Artistic Director, Jonathan Pell. “Robert Brill’s work is widely admired – both inside and outside the opera world – for its versatility and evocative power. It will no doubt provide a strong foundation for this monumental world premiere.”

Mr. Brill received a 2009 Tony® Award nomination for his exuberant set design for the recent Broadway revival of Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls. His work was also honored with a 2004 Tony® nomination for Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins and a 2004 Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration. In 1996, Brill earned a Joseph Jefferson Award for his scenic design for a revival of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Buried Child at Chicago ’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and a 1995 Joseph Jefferson Award for his set designs for A Clockwork Orange, also at Steppenwolf.

A founding member of San Diego’s cutting-edge Sledgehammer Theatre, Mr. Brill has designed for the Whitney Museum of American Art, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout, New York Stage and Film, New York Theatre Workshop, the Guthrie, American Conservatory Theater, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to name only the most prominent companies.

Brill’s opera credits include Berg’s Wozzeck for San Diego Opera, Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea for Chicago Opera Theater, and La bohème for Minnesota Opera. His extensive Broadway credits include scenic designs for Guys and Dolls (2009), A Streetcar Named Desire (2005), The Good Body (2004), Laugh Whore (2004), Assassins (2004), Anna in the Tropics (2003), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2001), Design for Living (2001), Cabaret (1998), The Rehearsal (1996), and Buried Child (1996).

Robert Brill accepted The Dallas Opera’s invitation to step in as scenic designer on the project when the designer originally commissioned for the task, Michael Yeargan, was forced to withdraw for personal reasons. Moby-Dick, based by the authors on Herman Melville’s novel, is being produced in partnership with the San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, Calgary Opera, and the State Opera of South Australia.

Next spring’s Dallas Opera world premiere production of Moby-Dick is staged by director Leonard Foglia and stars Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab, Stephen Costello as Ishmael, Jonathan Lemalu as Queequeg, Allan Glassman as Flask, and Morgan Smith as Starbuck. Patrick Summers conducts. Performances are scheduled for April 30 and May 2, 5, 8, 13, and 16, 2010, in the new Winspear Opera House.

The Dallas Opera is supported, in part, by funds from: City of Dallas , Office of Cultural Affairs; TACA; the Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA); and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). American Airlines is the official airline of The Dallas Opera. Lexus is the official vehicle of The Dallas Opera. Cartier is the official jeweler of The Dallas Opera. Rosewood Crescent Hotel is the official hotel of The Dallas Opera. Pianos provided by Steinway Hall, Dallas/Ft. Worth/Plano. Advertising support is provided by the Dallas Morning News. A special thanks goes to the Elsa von Seggern Foundation for its continuing support.

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