A star rises over the Nile

Last March 3, I settled in to listen to the Saturday matinee radio broadcast of Verdi's Aida from the Metropolitan Opera. An announcement was made that the soprano scheduled to sing the lead role, Violeta Urmana, was ill, and she would be replaced in this performance by her understudy, Latonia Moore.

Ms. Moore had found out the day before that she'd be making her debut at the vaunted Met in an international broadcast in one of the most well-known roles in opera. She went on without a stage rehearsal. Her performance was brilliant -- not perfect, but you knew that this was one of those magical moments in the theater when you can say "I was there" (albeit via radio and with 11 million fellow listeners) for a young star's breakthrough performance. The ovation was what you'd expect if they made a movie of the whole thing.

Ms. Moore was born in Houston and went to the University of North Texas to study jazz. Somebody suggested she try singing some classical stuff, and off she went. She won several young artists competitions, and with a lot of hard work began building a career as an operatic soprano.

It turns out that I'd heard Ms. Moore in the Dallas Opera's 2004 Carmen as Micaela. I didn't remember the name, but I did remember that performance.

Her triumph with the Met in Aida is not lessened, but is perhaps better understood, when you realize that she had already sung the role, to glowing reviews, in Europe and at Covent Garden in London. Since then, she's played Aida at the Sydney Opera House (yes, the one with the "sails"), also as a fill-in, but on a month's notice, rather than a day's.

Now Ms. Moore is bringing her exceptional portrayal of Aida "home." She'll sing in the Dallas Opera's production of the Verdi masterpiece starting Friday, Oct. 26, at the Winspear Opera House, along with Antonello Palombi as Radames and Nadia Krasteva as Amneris. The conductor is Graeme Jenkins, beginning his final season as music director of the Dallas Opera. Other evening performances are on Oct. 31, Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, with matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.

The Symphony

I've become known to my friends, family and co-workers as an opera guy. Particularly a Wagner guy.

But my roots are in orchestral music, going back to my days in the first violin section of a pretty decent high school orchestra.

That love of orchestral music is no doubt the reason I'm a "Wagner guy," since musically, Wagner was not so much an operatic composer as a symphonist.

Much is made of Wagner's leitmotifs, especially in his Ring of the Nibelung. But what sets those motives apart are not that he invented them (they've been used to varying degrees by countless opera composers before and since), but how he developed them musically, much as a symphony composer develops themes.

Like millions of musicians and music lovers over the past 200 years (and I'm firmly in the latter category, as much as I'd like to be in the first), I really learned to appreciate the concert orchestra by listening to the symphonies of Beethoven. That was true of Herr Wagner, too, who idolized Beethoven.

My parents bought me a set of Beethoven's complete symphonies on LP for Christmas one year, after some not-so-subtle hinting from myself. When my brother was in college, he somehow came into possession of a friend's "miniature scores" edition of the Beethoven symphonies, which mysteriously ended up among my possessions. I still have it and refer to it occasionally.

And when the Dallas Symphony performed all nine symphonies in order over five concerts a few years ago, I was there for every one. The concert that included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies was my first exposure to a fellow named Jaap van Zweden, who was "guest conducting" but had just accepted the job of music director of the DSO. What a great introduction to a great conductor!

And like millions before me, I went out from Beethoven to discover the other great symphonic music -- symphonies, concertos, tone poems, overtures and all the rest. Some, like Haydn and Mozart, came from before LVB, and many came after. But the symphony remains my favorite form of music.

Now, if you'll indulge me, here's a list of my favorite symphonies, more or less in chronological order. I dare not attempt to "rank" them. If you do a Google search on "greatest symphonies," you'll get one entire boatload of "rankings," all purporting to be "correct," and all of them different!

• Mozart: No. 39 in E-flat Major; No. 40 in G minor; and No. 41 in C Major "Jupiter"
• Haydn: No. 102 in B-flat Major; No. 104 in D Major "London"
• Beethoven: I want to say all nine, but if I had to cut that down, it would be No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica"; No. 5 in C minor; No. 6 in F Major "Pastoral"; and No. 9 in D minor
• Schubert: No. 8 in B minor "Unfinished"; and No. 9 in C Major
• Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
• Mendelssohn: No. 4 in A Major "Italian"
• Schumann: No. 1 in B-flat Major "Spring"; No. 4 in D minor
• Brahms: I couldn't possibly choose a favorite: No. 1 in C minor; No. 2 in D Major; No. 3 in F Major; and No. 4 in E minor
• Bruckner: No. 7 in E Major
• Saint-Saens: No. 3 in C minor "Organ"
• Franck: Symphony in D minor
• Tchaikovsky: No. 5 in E minor; and No. 6 in B minor
• Dvorak: No. 8 in G Major; and No. 9 in E minor "From the New World"
• Sibelius: No. 2 in D Major; and No. 5 in E-flat Major
• Nielsen: No. 4 "The Inextinguishable"
• Shostakovich: No. 5 in D minor

Yes, I'm aware that this list reveals my "mainstream" nature, but I'm not apologetic about that. It also leaves off several that I'm just not familiar enough with to include, like the Mahler 5th or the Shostakovich 10th.

I'm sure my many thousands of followers on this blog (Not thousands? OK, scores? All right, maybe a dozen) will disagree with at least some of this or insist on additions. If so, please comment or let me know.

But if you like this kind of stuff, you can't go wrong enjoying any of these.

Tragedy in Arlington

There's only one word to accurately describe the Wagnerian end of the Texas Rangers' 2012 season:

Götterdämmerung