Houston Grand Opera News

Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) Opera to Go! presents the world premiere of Monkey & Francine in the City of Tigers, with music by rising composer Kamala Sankaram and libretto by David Johnston, February 2 and 3, 9:30 and 11 a.m. both days, at Heinen Theater, 3517 Austin St., Houston. Performances are free. The 45-minute family opera is inspired by Indian and Chinese mythology and includes music influenced by Bollywood. A hilarious fable, Monkey & Francine in the City of Tigers demonstrates the power of teamwork as a monkey prince and his brainy sister outwit a hungry crocodile and escape from the City of Tigers. The opera is a co-commission of HGO's HGOco arm with American Lyric Theater, which presented a partially staged performance in New York City earlier in January. Seen and Heard International noted, the libretto was sophisticated and fresh, while the music was witty and eclectic. You tapped your toes and found yourself singing along.

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 baritoneAndrzej Dobber as the Dutchman and the role debut of award-winning American soprano and HGO Studio alumna Rachel Willis-S rensen 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 P rez 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 Cos 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 Cat n's ethereal Florencia en el Amazonas with internationally acclaimed soprano and HGO Studio alumna Ana Mar a Mart nez 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 the return of HGO's 2012 production of Puccini's perennial classic La boh me, featuring the role debut of soprano and HGO Studio alumna Nicole Heaston as Mim .

Porchlight Music Theatre continues its fifth season of Chicago's lost musicals in staged concert series with Porchlight Revisits They're Playing Our Song, starring Sharriese Hamilton and James Earl Jones II, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager and book by Neil Simon, with direction and choreography by Christopher Carter and musical direction by Andra Velis Simon. Porchlight Revisits They're Playing our Song is presented for three-nights-only Tuesday, March 6 through Thursday, March 8 at 7:15 p.m. and is performed on the set of Porchlight's Merrily We Roll Along (previews begin January 26) at Porchlight's new home, The Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn Street. Tickets for They're Playing Our Song are $35. All tickets include access to the popular pre-performance event, Behind the Show Backstory, a multimedia presentation, created and hosted by Porchlight Music Theatre Artistic Director Michael Weber that discusses the evening's production including the show's creative history, juicy backstage gossip and the state of the art on Broadway that season. Single tickets to They're Playing Our Song and subscriptions for the entire series are available at porchlightmusictheatre.org or by calling the Porchlight Music Theatre box office at 773.777.9884.

This week marks the first Houston Grand Opera appearance in 25 years of the most harrowing night of opera in the repertoire: Richard Strauss's 1909 bloodcurdling ELEKTRA. Hailing from one of Greek mythology's most notorious royal families, ELEKTRA follows the title character's quest to avenge her father's murder.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen the semifinalists for the 30th annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Stude Concert Hall at Rice University on February 1, at 7 p.m. A limited number of general admission tickets for the performance are available here. For the second time, the program will also be streamed live on Facebook, as well as on YouTube. The livestream will be hosted this year by award-winning soprano Tamara Wilson. Viewers will be invited to cast their votes for an Online Viewers' Choice Award.

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.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen the semifinalists for the 30th annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Stude Concert Hall at Rice University on February 1, at 7 p.m. A limited number of general admission tickets for the performance are available here. For the second time, the program will also be streamed live on Facebook, as well as on YouTube. The livestream will be hosted this year by award-winning soprano Tamara Wilson. Viewers will be invited to cast their votes for an Online Viewers' Choice Award.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

The Atlanta Opera continues its 2017-18 season with Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment, known for its romance, comedy, and vocal acrobatics. Andriana Chuchman will make her Atlanta debut as Marie, the adopted daughter of the French 21st regiment. Santiago Ballerini, an alum of The Atlanta Opera Studio artist, returns to Atlanta as Tonio. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe makes her role debut as The Marquise of Berkenfeld. This production marks the debut of The Daughter of the Regiment at the Cobb Energy Centre, and the first presentation in Atlanta since 1985.

Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co. and Houston Grand Opera (HGO) reunite for a happy hour to celebrate the opening of Rossini's The Barber of Seville on Jan. 26 and Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, FIIIGAAARO beer (Figaro for short). This beer was originally brewed in collaboration with HGO to celebrate the opening night of The Barber of Seville in 2011. When Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company first started testing this creative collab, they knew it needed a secret ingredient as dark, sweet, and tricky as Figaro himself. Hence Figaro, a Belgian quad brewed with Turkish figs, was born.

Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano and Kathleen Kelly, piano comes to The Kentucky Center Bomhard Theater on Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25. Kentucky Center Members call the member hotline at (502) 566-5144. Standard tickets are available at www.kentuckycenter.org/presents, by phone (502) 584-7777, (800) 775-7777, and in-person at The Kentucky Center box office and drive-thru. Please call (502) 566-5111 for information about the range of accessibility options we offer to enhance your performance experience.

New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Producing Artistic Director; Jaynie Saunders Tiller, Managing Director) will present two experimental plays in which sound design is intrinsic to story, text and theatrical landscape in rep together at The Flea Theater (20 Thomas Street between Church Street and Broadway), February 14-March 4

Ars Lyrica Houston presents the fourth concert of the 2017/2018 Artful Women season with Esther & Jonah in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center on Friday, February 16 at 7:30pm. Produced in collaboration with Bach Society Houston as part of the 2018 Houston Early Music Festival, this program comprises two concise music dramas from opposite ends of the 18th century: G. F. Handel's Esther (1718) and Samuel Felsted's Jonah (1775).

Houston Grand Opera ( HGO ) presents Richard Strauss's chilling one - act drama, Elektra, January 19 February 2, the first HGO performances in 25 years. The Sir David McVicar production stars internationally acclaimed soprano Christine Goerke, who owns the title role as one of the most fearless and formidable dramatic sopranos of the day ( New York Times ).

Music Director Designate Jaap van Zweden will conduct the New York Philharmonic in a program pairing the New York Premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams's Dark Waves with Act I of Wagner's Die Walk re (in concert), with soprano Heidi Melton as Sieglinde, tenor Simon O'Neill as Siegmund (in his New York Philharmonic debut), and bass John Relyea as Hunding.

Lyric Unlimited, a division of Lyric Opera of Chicago, is excited to present Cycles of My Being, a song cycle exploring the realities of life as a black man in America. Composed by Tyshawn Sorey with lyrics by Terrance Hayes, the Chicago-premiere event will star celebrated tenor Lawrence Brownlee in a solo recital with pianist Myra Huang on Thursday, February 22 at 7pm at the DuSable Museum of African American History.Cycles of My Being is a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall.

American Lyric Theater presents ALT Alumni: Composers and Librettists in Concert on January 14, 2018 at 8pm at Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Music Center, 129 W. 67th Street, NYC. Tickets are $25 and are available by phone at 212-501-3330 or online at www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/alt-alumni-composers-and-librettists-in-concert.

Very few works of art retain the power to shock and disturb that they showed on their opening night decades earlier. One of those is Richard Strauss's 1905 operaSalome. When it first appeared, this steamy brew of eroticism and religion so unnerved audiences that it was banned in Vienna and London. The opera's troubles didn't end there. In 1907, at New York's Metropolitan Opera, it was yanked from the company's repertoire just days after its premiere. At a semipublic dress rehearsal, the way in which the company's Salome, soprano Olive Fremstad, planted a passionate kiss on the severed head of John the Baptist, proved too disturbing for many of the timid Met patrons. The board revolted, demanding that General Manager Heinrich Conried bring Salome'srun to a halt. A statement was issued declaring that the work itself was objectionable and detrimental to the best interests of the Metropolitan Opera House.

The world's first mariachi musical Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon) created by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan's Jose Pepe Martinez and Broadway's Leonard Foglia, will have its Los Angeles premiere at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) on Friday, February 16 at 8:00pm, Saturday, February 17 at 8:00pm and Sunday, February 18 at 3:00pm.