Glynn Ross, 90; Director Debuted in L.A. in 1940, Founded Seattle Opera

Glynn Ross, 90, the founding director of the Seattle Opera, died Thursday at his home in Tucson of complications from a stroke, the Seattle Opera announced.

Ross, who founded the Seattle Opera in 1963, won acclaim for staging the first U.S. productions of Wagner’s complete “Ring” cycle as the composer intended, four operas in sequence within a week. He also founded the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1972; it was administered by the Seattle Opera for its first four years.

A native of Omaha, Ross began his professional opera career in 1940 directing Gounod’s “Faust” at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium. The next year he founded the opera department at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

He joined the U.S. Army during World War II and was assigned to Naples, Italy, where he remained after the war as stage director at the Teatro San Carlo, the first American to direct at a major Italian opera house.

He returned to the U.S. in 1948, directing at Los Angeles Opera Theater (1948-60), the San Francisco Opera (1948, 1950-60), the Fort Worth Opera (1948-56) and the Opera Company of Philadelphia (1960-62) before going to Seattle.

In 1975, the Seattle Opera began producing a summer weeklong “Ring” cycle in German and English. The summer festival proved popular and continued until 1984. Ross ran the company until 1982.

He became general director of Arizona Opera in 1983 and kept that post until 1998.