Houston Grand Opera Announces 2018 19 Season

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present its 2018-19 season in its creative home at Houston's Wortham Theater Center after a year of displacement due to damage to the building from Hurricane Harvey.

The 64th season will open October 19, 2018, with HGO's first performances in 20 years of Wagner's romantic ghost story The Flying Dutchman, in a new production featuring baritone Andrzej Dobber as the Dutchman and the role debut of award-winning American soprano and HGO Studio alumna Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Senta.

To close the season, the new Kasper Holten production of Mozart's Don Giovanni featuring the HGO debut of baritone Philippe Sly in the title role and the role debut of soprano Ailyn Pérez as Donna Anna will be presented in repertory with The Phoenix, a world premiere about the colorful life of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's librettist for the masterful Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Così fan tutte. The new work, written by composer Tarik O'Regan and librettist John Caird, will star renowned baritone Thomas Hampson as Lorenzo da Ponte in a belated HGO debut and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Da Ponte's son, Lorenzo.

HGO will also present a revival of Daniel Catán's ethereal Florencia en el Amazonas with internationally acclaimed soprano and HGO Studio alumna Ana María Martínez in the title role; the first HGO presentation of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers with the stellar tenor and baritone pairing of Lawrence Brownlee and Mariusz Kwiecien in the title roles along with soprano Andrea Carroll and choreographed by 2018-19 Lynn Wyatt Great Artist Charlie Williams; and the return of HGO's 2012 production of Puccini's perennial classic La bohème, featuring the role debut of soprano and HGO Studio alumna Nicole Heaston as Mimì and rising tenor Ivan Magri as Rodolfo in what will be his American debut.