Miles Mykkanen Will Lead SILENT NIGHT at Houston Grand Opera

Houston Grand Opera has announced that internationally celebrated Finnish-American tenor Miles Mykkanen will perform the lead role of Nikolaus Sprink in Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night, which will open the company's winter repertoire in a new production on Jan. 23. Mykkanen will be making his HGO debut in the role, which he previously performed in Minnesota Opera's 2018 production and subsequent recording. He replaces tenor Duke Kim, who had to withdraw from the production due to illness.  

Mykkanen, whose voice has been called “striking and brilliant” by Opera Magazine, has performed major roles at houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and London's Royal Ballet and Opera. His 2025-26 season includes starring as Sam Clay in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Groom in Innocence at the Metropolitan Opera. A winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2019, he was recently named one of OperaWire's “Top Ten Rising Stars 2025.”  

Inspired by the 2005 film Joyeux Noël, Silent Night is set during the real-life Christmas truce of 1914, during World War I. At the center of the story is Mykkanen's fictional Nikolaus Sprink, whose defiant caroling leads to a ceasefire—and a powerful portrayal of peace amid conflict. HGO's production, presented in a newly revised version by Puts and Campbell, will mark the trilingual opera's Houston premiere. Co-produced by HGO and the Metropolitan Opera, this new staging, created by award-winning director James Robinson, will be presented in Houston before traveling to New York.