Houston Grand Opera News

On Tuesday, April 11 at 8:00PM at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, the American Classical Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the composer's towering final achievement. Unique among the seasons' 9th performances, this concert will be performed on period instruments, using the tempos and performance techniques of its premiere nearly 200 years ago. The thrilling textures and nuanced blend of period instruments with the voices of the highly acclaimed ACO Chorus will transport listeners back to the sound world of the early 19th century, while bringing them closer to the composer's intentions and original markings. The result is a deeper, more fulfilling musical experience of this great work. To provide greater understanding, Maestro Thomas Crawford will deliver an introduction, with orchestra and chorus onstage to perform excerpts, before conducting the 70-minute Symphony. This combination of pre-symphony talk and period instrument performance offers rare and meaningful immersion into this much-loved symphony. Soloists are Sherezade Panthaki, Michael Sumuel, Helen Karloski and Kang Wang.

On Tuesday, April 11 at 8:00PM at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, the American Classical Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the composer's towering final achievement. Unique among the seasons' 9th performances, this concert will be performed on period instruments, using the tempos and performance techniques of its premiere nearly 200 years ago. The thrilling textures and nuanced blend of period instruments with the voices of the highly acclaimed ACO Chorus will transport listeners back to the sound world of the early 19th century, while bringing them closer to the composer's intentions and original markings.  The result is a deeper, more fulfilling musical experience of this great work. To provide greater understanding, Maestro Thomas Crawford will deliver an introduction, with orchestra and chorus onstage to perform excerpts, before conducting the 70-minute Symphony. This combination of pre-symphony talk and period instrument performance offers rare and meaningful immersion into this much-loved symphony. Soloists are Sherezade Panthaki, Michael Sumuel, Helen Karloski and Kang Wang.

Soprano Amber Wagner, a 2010 George London Award Winner, and baritone Reginald Smith, Jr., who won his George London Award in 2015, make their New York recital debuts at the final program in the George London Foundation Recital Series, and the final event in the foundation's season, on Sunday, April 2, 2017, at 4:00 pm. Alan Darling is the recital's pianist; a reception with the artists follows the concert.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) presents 'The Perfect American,' a Chicago premiere opera by American composer Philip Glass. Based on American novelist Peter Stephan Jungk's 2001 novel, 'Der Konig von Amerika,' Glass' opera imagines the last three months of Walt Disney's life.

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) General Director and CEO Susan T. Danis today unveiled plans for the company's 2017-18 season. Anchored by the theme 'Divas to Die For,' FGO's seventy-seventh season will boast a diverse range of works about women on dangerous emotional journeys.

Former Houston Symphony Music Director Christoph Eschenbach returns to Houston to conduct a spiritually-uplifting program of works by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner at8 p.m. March 3-4, and 2:30 p.m. March 5.

Playwright Mashuq Deen (New Dramatists Fellow 2022) brings the story of his own transgender journey as a member of a traditional South Asian family and Playwright Catherine Filloux, winner of more than 40 awards for playwriting, activism and peace work, brings her latest work to the stage at New York City's first arts-advocacy festival of its kind, the International Human Rights Art Festival.

Opera in the Heights (OH) announces its 2017-18 season, a diverse collection of masterworks, which artistic director Eiki Isomura calls 'a representation of what we value most at Opera in the Heights.' In describing the company's four main stage productions, Isomura states, 'There is no better showcase for the vocal virtuosity of our emerging artists than La Fille du Regiment. And there is no better gateway into the art form for our younger audiences than The Magic Flute,' says Isomura. 'The grandeur of Un Ballo in Maschera finds its most potent expression in the intimacy of our venue, Lambert Hall. Finally, Candide will highlight our brilliant OH Orchestra and give us an opportunity to honor the past with Leonard Bernstein's upcoming centennial and, at the same time, further expand our repertoire.'

The Paley Center for Media in New York City (25 WEST 52ND ST., NYC) will screen the complete 1981 PBS Great Performances telecast of WILLIE STARK starring Timothy Nolen on Saturday, February 25, from 1 to 3:30 pm.

In light of recent news from Washington, American Opera Projects (AOP) announces that of its 31 new operas in development, four are on LGBTQ topics.  For AOP, this is not new. In 1998, AOP premiered the first opera ever to focus on a lesbian relationship, Patience & Sarah, by composer Paula M. Kimper, and librettist Wende Persons, three years after Houston Grand Opera's premiere of Harvey Milk composed by Stewart Wallace to a libretto by Michael Korie. 

The New York Philharmonic will return to Bravo! Vail in Colorado, celebrating its 30th season, for the Orchestra's 15th annual summer residency, July 21-28, 2017. The residency will include six orchestral concerts that honor the Philharmonic's legacy on the occasion of its 175th anniversary season and the conclusion of Alan Gilbert's tenure as Music Director.

The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) will produce the New York Premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Prince of Players at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, East 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues from February 23-26, 2017. 

The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) will produce the New York Premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Prince of Players at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, East 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues from February 23-26, 2017.

Tenor Paul Appleby, the 2011 George London Award winner who, it was recently announced, will be in the cast of the world premiere of John Adams's Girls of the Golden West with San Francisco Opera next season, teams up with mezzo-soprano and 2015 George London Award winner Sarah Mesko and pianist Ken Noda for the season's second event in the George London Foundation Recital Series at The Morgan Library & Museum on Sunday, March 5, 2017, at 4:00 pm.

Saturday, February 18, Houston's newest downtown hotspot, Rec Room premiered its new interactive kids show, GARBAGE ISLAND, and the response was amazing.

???????Palm Beach Opera presents Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto for one weekend only, March 10-12, at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.

Former Houston Symphony Music Director Christoph Eschenbach returns to Houston to conduct a spiritually-uplifting program of works by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner at8 p.m. March 3-4, and 2:30 p.m. March 5.

Utah Opera Artistic Director Christopher McBeth today announced Utah Opera's 2017-18 season in recognition of the company's 40th anniversary.