Atlanta Opera announces 2012-2013 season

There were no betting tables set up outside the Atlanta Opera headquarters in advance of their 2012-2013 season announcement event last evening, but if there had been, Creative Loafing would have won big.

We would have placed lots of money on the chance that a production of Carmen features prominently in the new season. It’s one of the most popular of all operas, and it hasn’t been performed by the AO since 2004, and that was at the (shudder) Civic Center. Atlanta’s ready for another production, we figured. Imagine our self-congratulatory satisfaction at being proved totally right when Atlanta Opera General Manager Dennis Hanthorn unveiled the first show of the season: Carmen. AO owns a traditional production, and it will be at the Cobb Energy Centre in early November. Debuting with The Atlanta Opera is mezzo-soprano Maria José Montiel, who will be singing the role of Carmen. Mexican tenor Fernando de la Mora returns to the Atlanta Opera stage to take the role of Don José.

We felt like we’d picked the Powerball when Hanthorn moved on to unveil the second opera of the season: La Traviata. It was 1998 when Atlanta Opera did its last Traviata, and we figured that was a pretty safe bet, too. AO likewise owns a traditional production which will run at Cobb Energy in March of 2013. In her Atlanta Opera debut, soprano Mary Dunleavy will be singing the role of Violetta, and playing Alfredo is Russian tenor Boris Rudak, in his American and Atlanta Opera debut.