Speight Jenkins, Seattle Opera Impresario, Dies at 88

Speight Jenkins, who served as the general manager of Seattle Opera from 1983 until 2014, has passed away. A tribute was sparked by Norman Lebrecht's obituary titled "America's Greatest Opera Boss Has Died." Jenkins played a pivotal role in establishing the company as the premier Wagner venue in North America, notably hiring director Francois Rochaix for the iconic 1986 Ring cycle. He made significant improvements to acoustics, implemented English supertitles, and prioritized high-caliber lectures and symposia. During his tenure, productions such as The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger, and Tristan were staged from 1984 to 1998, culminating in a hyper-realistic Ring in 2001. In 2003, Seattle Opera completed its Wagner repertoire with Rochaix's Parsifal, coinciding with the debut of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, which had a budget of $127 million.