Houston Grand Opera News

Houston Grand Opera and HGOco announce the launch of The Armadillo's Dream, a children's book authored by HGOco Touring Programs Manager Dennis Arrowsmith. This is HGO's first-ever commissioned storybook, with underwriting by the Connie Kwan-Wong Foundation and CKW Luxe.

The Verdi Chorus 35th anniversary season culminates with its Fall 2018 concert Passione! Opera! for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on November 10 and 11 led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum. As the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus, this program, which marks the end of a landmark year for the company, will feature selections from three Verdi operas - Aida, Don Carlo, and the famed chorus "Va, pensiero," from Nabucco, as well as operatic sequences from Boito's Mefistofele, Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah, Catalani's La Wally and Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage's 2018-19 Celebrity Opera Series continues -Placido Domingo with soprano Ailyn Perez on Tuesday, May 14 at 7:30pm.  Eugene Kohn conducts the orchestra.

Houston Grand Opera opens its 64th season with The Flying Dutchman, Wagner's eerie romance about the redeeming and transformative power of a woman's love. This new production by director Tomer Zvulun, making his HGO debut, heightens the dramatic elements of the famous legend of a cursed ghost ship. The production doubles as a welcome home for the company after being displaced by Hurricane Harvey for over an entire year. 

When the Met's literary advisor asked Nicholas Wright what he thought about doing the libretto for MARNIE, he said yes because he was really interested in working with composer Nico Muhly and Michael Mayer. He was somewhat reserved, however, about whether it was a good opera subject. That was understandable, of course, when he admitted, laughing, a case of mistaken identity.

Composer Heidi Rodewald, known for her collaborations with Stew on Passing Strange and The Total Bent, strikes out on her own in The Good Swimmer, a "pop requiem" that addresses issues of war, heroism, sacrifice, loss, and idealism. The moody, multi-layered song-cycle for guitar, bass, piano, trumpet, woodwinds, strings, drums, and vocals is performed by a nine-piece band led by singer David Driver. Set in the early days of the Vietnam War among a group of lifeguards, Donna Di Novelli's lyrics are a radical recontextualization of found texts, including a defunct lifesaving manual. A cast of young singers in their teens and early 20s at the start of their professional careers-Jeremy Weiss, Sophia Byrd, Naseer Sleets, Joey LaPlante, Luke Bob Robinson, Papa Holt, and Kennedy Kanagawa-vividly conveys the sense of young people being thrust into a historical moment they have no control of. Their shattering experience brings the audience to a galvanizing realization: we truly honor our fallen soldiers only when we defy the political drumbeat of a senseless war.  

The Ensemble Theatre special project series entitled: Celebrating the Creative Journeywill include its BOLD Women's Leadership Network Master Classes facilitated by a roster of all-female arts industry leaders, Adult Sessions (Men and Women) Saturday, October 27, 2018, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and Teen Sessions (Girls Age 13-19) Saturday, November 10, 2018 Noon-3:00 p.m. Main Street, Houston, TX 77002.

The Atlanta Opera opens the 2018-19 mainstage season with a production of Leonard Bernstein's classic Broadway musical, West Side Story. Francesca Zambello, General & Artistic Director of The Glimmerglass Festival and Artistic Director of Washington National Opera, who created this new production with Houston Grand Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, will direct.

Monday evening, November 12, 2018, 8 p.m., The New York Choral Society and Orchestra (NYCHORAL) will present its first program of the season, MY SHADOW AND MY LIGHT, under the baton of Music Director David Hayes at the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. In honor of Veterans Day and in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War and the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Maestro Hayes has chosen a program that explores how three early 20th-century composers, two British and one American, created works expressing their deeply personal reactions to these profound moments in human history.

The new musical King Kong begins performances tonight, Friday, October 5. Get to know the cast below as they begin Broadway performances!

The Ballet Hispanico School of Dance offers adult dance and fitness classes that will keep you moving, fit, and energized. Classes are open to dancers of all levels ages 16 and up (no previous dance experience required). Cost: $20 drop-in class, $90 for 5-class card, $170 for a 10-class card. For more information, visit https://www.ballethispanico.org/classes/adult.

Following three critically-acclaimed, sold-out seasons on stage in London's West End, Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love) brings Charles Dickens' beloved classic A Christmas Carol to the big screen in December 2018. On Tuesday 11 December the stage-to-film adaptation, reimagined especially for cinema, will be released in 444 cinemas across the UK and Ireland by leading event cinema distributors CinemaLive.

Named for the groundbreaking African American contralto, the Marian Anderson Vocal Award recognizes a young American singer in opera, oratorio, or recital repertoire with outstanding promise for a significant career. Washington National Opera (WNO) named bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as the 2018 recipient earlier this year and is pleased to present him in concert today, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Tickets are $39.

IMG Artists, today's leading global performing arts management agency, announces a 36-city North American tour with multi-genre recording artist Damien Sneed. The Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient will bring his brand of classical, jazz, and gospel music to 'We Shall Overcome: A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., featuring Damien Sneed.' The tour will kick off on Friday, January 11, 2019, at the Empire Center at The Egg in Albany, NY, and will make stops at concert halls and universities in the U.S. and Canada. The tour will conclude on March 3 at the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto, CA.

The Metropolitan Opera presents the North American premiere of Marnie, an original Met commission by composer Nico Muhly and librettist Nicholas Wright, on October 19, 2018, with performances continuing until November 10. Based on Winston Graham's haunting novel, which also inspired the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Marnie is conducted by Robert Spano in his Met debut and directed by Michael Mayer, who created the staging for the opera's world premiere at English National Opera in 2017. The November 10 matinee will be transmitted live to movie theaters throughout the world as part of the Met's Live in HD series.

Desperate Measures, the hit musical comedy gone wild with music by David Friedman (Listen To My Heart), book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg (Anna Karenina), and directed byBill Castellino (Cagney, Marry Harry) has announced a new block of tickets, now on sale through December 30.

New York City Opera's 75th-anniversary season opens October 22 at (le) Poisson Rouge with a new production of Astor Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires. Directed by Tomer Zvulun, the production is based on an original concept created as part of The Atlanta Opera Discoveries Series and is presented in cooperation with the Atlanta Opera. Soprano Catalina Cuervo, the world's foremost interpreter of the title role, headlines the all-South American cast under the musical direction of conductor Jorge Parodi.

EXPERIMENTS IN OPERA Presents 'Modularias' Friday November 2, 2018 at 7:00pm and Saturday November 3, 2018 at 3:00pm and 7:00pm.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City steps off its 2018-2019 season with a bravura interpretation of 1957's "West Side Story." It is difficult to say enough good things about this Lyric Opera of Kansas City presentation.

The Verdi Chorus 35th anniversary season culminates with its Fall 2018 concert Passione! Opera! for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on November 10 and 11 led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum.   As the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus, this program, which marks the end of a landmark year for the company, will feature selections from three Verdi operas - Aida, Don Carlo, and the famed chorus 'Va, pensiero,' from Nabucco, as well as operatic sequences from Boito's Mefistofele, Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah, Catalani's La Wally and Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann.