Jenkins, Speight

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Jenkins, Speight

Jenkins, Speight, American opera administrator; b. Dallas, Jan. 31, 1937. He was educated at the Univ. of Tex. at Austin (B.A., 1957) and at Columbia Univ. (LL.B., 1961). He was an ed. for Opera News (1967–73), music critic of the N.Y. Post (1973–81), and host for the “Live from the Met” telecasts on PBS (1981–83). In 1983 he became general director of the Seattle Opera. His tenure was highlighted with stagings of the Ring cycle (1986-87; 1991; 1995), Glass’s Satyagraha (1988), Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1990), Pelléas et Mélisande (1993), Lohengrin (1994), Andrea Chénier (1996), and Tristan und Isolde (1998).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire