This exhibit is on permanent display. Located in the Sandborn Music Reading Room in Willis Library, Room 430A at the University of North Texas.
Many international stars have made their American debuts with the Dallas Opera, among them Montserrat Caballé, Gwyneth Jones, Dame Joan Sutherland, Jon Vickers, and Plácido Domingo, in addition to director Franco Zeffirelli. Early in his tenure with the Dallas Opera Chorus, Phillip Barbosa began collecting autographed programs, photographs, and other memorabilia of all of the stars who came to Dallas to perform with the opera. He has continued this endeavor to the present day, and his collection now numbers in the hundreds of items. Together they chronicle the history of the Dallas Opera in a very personal way, reflecting Mr. Barbosa’s own passion for opera as well as his desire to preserve the Dallas Opera’s illustrious history, a history of which he was an intimate part for more than three decades. Dallas native Phillip Barbosa performed with the Dallas Opera Chorus for thirty-six years, beginning in 1959 while he was still a teenager. This was two years after the founding of the company, then called the Dallas Civic Opera, in 1957 by Lawrence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno.
