Houston Grand Opera News

Lawrence Brownlee has been named Male Singer of the Year for the 2017 International Opera Awards for his achievements throughout 2016.

Acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons will hold its annual Spring Gala on Monday evening, May 8, at the event space 583 Park Avenue. Titled A CELEBRATION OF SONG, the evening will honor three of the company's exceptional alumni writers: Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights), Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights) and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife and Grey Gardens at Playwrights). The Grey Gardens writing team has returned to Broadway with their new musical, War Paint, now playing at The Nederlander Theatre.

Meredith Monk and members of her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble are set to perform work-in-progress showings of her upcoming music theater piece, Cellular Songs, at artist Jim Hodges' Queenslab, June 8–10. See below for event details.

Baritone Joseph Lattanzi and mezzo Laura Krumm didn't originate at the roles of Jack and Jackie Kennedy when JFK--the new opera by David T. Little and Royce Vavrek--premiered in Fort Worth a year ago. But they certainly owned them in the excerpts presented in the most daring of the four excellent works represented in the “ALT Alumni: Composers and Librettists in Concert” at New York's Morgan Library & Museum last week.

The Dallas Opera has released soprano Elza van den Heever from singing the upcoming matinee performance of Vincenzo Bellini's NORMA on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 2:00 p.m., due to a family emergency.  Acclaimed Italian-Canadian soprano, Aviva Fortunata, will assume the role of the betrayed Druid priestess.

This email contains The Florentine Opera proudly announces it will expand its successful Studio Artist program to include a summer quartet in 2017, and welcome three new singers to its program for the 2017-18 season.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) will present internationally renowned soprano Patricia Racette with an honorary doctorate at the institution's annual commencement ceremony on May 19, 2017. Racette, highly sought after for her dramatic interpretations of roles both iconic and new, is known the world over for her lyrical expressivity and dynamism. She has performed on the stages of La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera House, among many others. She is also the recipient of the prized Richard Tucker Award and the Opera News Award.

An elite group of nineteen of the most talented young opera singers in the country competed this weekend for prestige and prizes in the 29th Annual Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition.

In May 2017, Utah Opera will present Mozart's “Don Giovanni,” a tale of love, seduction, and murder as seen through the stylized lens of a 1950s “film noir” cinematic approach. This production will be performed five times at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre on May 13, 15, 17, 19 at 7:30 PM and May 21 at 2 PM. Tickets, priced from $21-$92, are available for purchase through www.utahopera.org or by calling (801) 533-6683.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have announced two-time Olivier Award nominee Michael Xavier will join Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming Broadway premiere of Prince of Broadway, a musical celebration that highlights the extraordinary six-decade career of director and producer Harold Prince.

Community, collaboration and crime capture the mood at Bristol Riverside Theatre's production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, running May 9-May 28.  Directed by Susan D. Atkinson, the high-voltage thriller by the Queen of Crime drama, which concludes BRT's 30th Anniversary Season, features an ensemble of professional actors Sharon Alexander, Keith Baker, Kenneth Boys, Hanna Gaffney,  Leonard C. Haas, Eleanor Handley, Thomas-Robert Irvin, Kyra Leeds, Matt Leisy, James Luse, William R. McHattie, Christopher J. Perugini, Carl Wallnau, Paul B. Weagraff, and Kylie Westerbeck performing alongside Bucks County community members Missy Andrews, Mari Bernhagen, Drew Burke, Melissa Bushey, David Owen Cashell, Sybil Cooper, Matthew DiMarino, Ginny Fairweather, Maryann Fanning, Michael Gearty, Regina Gluhski, Terri Hall, Sarah Konyves, Donna Rae Lee, Matt Lydon, Sr., Matt Lydon, Jr., Donna McCole, Ronald Pae, Eileen Peters, Dottie Polsenberg, Lesia Pryor, Patricia Rooney, Kurt Scholer, Marion M. Walter, Harriet Zeff, and Margie Zielinski.

This summer, expect to be engaged, enraptured and invigorated when classical music's rising stars perform major classical and contemporary works by luminaries including Daniel Catan, Chausson, Elgar, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Shostakovich and Strauss at the 28th Annual Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival (TMF). The TMF 'Cool & Classical' Orchestra Series, set for June 10, June 17, June 23-24 and July 1.

The Houston Symphony celebrates the whimsical world of Dr. Seuss with a semi-staged, orchestral version of “Green Eggs and Ham” at 10 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday, April 29, 2017.Led by Associate Conductor Robert Franz, the animated, fun-filled celebration of Dr. Seuss at the Symphony will also feature familiar music from animated television classics and lively musical works that capture the imagination.

Ruth Eckerd Hall presents Broadway's Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage on Friday, May 5 at 8 pm, Saturday, May 6 at 2 & 8 pm and Sunday, May 7 at 2 & 7 pm. Tickets are on sale now.

In the third of Alan Gilbert's final four subscription weeks as New York Philharmonic Music Director, he will lead an enhanced concert production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. Soloists include bass-baritone Eric Owens as Wotan, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Fricka (in her New York Philharmonic debut), baritone Christopher Purves as Alberich (debut), tenor Russell Thomas as Loge, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor as Erda, bass Morris Robinson as Fasolt (debut), bass Stephen Milling as Fafner (debut), soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Freia (debut), tenor Brian Jagde as Froh (debut), bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Donner (debut), tenor Peter Bronder as Mime (debut), soprano Jennifer Zetlan as Woglinde, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Wellgunde, and mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford as Flosshilde. The enhanced concert production will be directed by Louisa Muller with costume design - featuring character-based treatment of modern concert attire - by David C. Woolard. The performances will take place Thursday, June 1, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Paul Hopper, HGO Asst. Artistic Director, reflects on the opera company's relationship with Wagner's Ring Cycle. The summation of his reverie -- burn, baby. Burn!

Richard Tucker Music Foundation named soprano Nadine Sierra as winner of 2017 Richard Tucker Award; simultanously, it announced its roster of study and career grant recipients.

Soprano Nadine Sierra - who at 28 years old is already establishing herself as a fixture at many of the world's leading opera houses, including those of Paris, Milan, Berlin, and New York - was named today by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation as the winner of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award.