Houston Grand Opera News

Laguna Playhouse has announced the final announced production of its 2017-2018 season of shows, written and directed by Hershey Felder, NATHAN GUNN, FLYING SOLO.

The Dallas Opera announces one remarkable evening of music, competition, and celebration as two great traditions come together. The Dallas Opera Springs Gala 2017returns this year in partnership with the final round of the 29th Annual Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition. The events focus on encouraging the next generation of artists with proceeds from the Gala to support the company's education programs.

Ryan Speedo Green rose from a tough upbringing amid the urban wastelands of southeastern Virginia to win a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera. Today he is a rising star, performing in Europe's major opera houses and at the Met (Colline in La bohème 2016), where the New York Times declared him “a show stopper.”

The Actors Fund, the national human services organization that helps everyone in performing arts and entertainment in times of need, crisis or transition, will hold its Annual Gala on Monday, May 8, 2017.

ANGEL'S BONE, by Du Yun with a libretto by Royce Vavrek was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The opera--a bold work that that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world--debuted on January 6, 2016 at the Prototype Festival, 3LD Arts and Technology Center in New York.

Ardea Arts is pleased to announce that Hunter Opera Theater (HOT) will present the New York Theater Premiere of Fireworks, an American opera buffa by composer Kitty Brazelton and writer-librettist Billy Aronson, commissioned and developed by Family Opera Initiative.

General Director Plácido Domingo has announced final casting details for LA Opera's upcoming production of Giacomo Puccini's thrilling masterpiece, Tosca, conducted by Music Director James Conlon.

Ardea Arts has announced that Hunter Opera Theater (HOT) will present the New York Theater Premiere of Fireworks, an American opera buffa by composer Kitty Brazelton and writer-librettist Billy Aronson, commissioned and developed by Family Opera Initiative.

The 2017 Schwabacher Debut Recitals series concludes on Sunday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m., with a recital by a trio of San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows featured with collaborative pianist Warren Jones in a program of Italian and French repertoire.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have just announced casting for the Broadway premiere of Prince of Broadway, a musical celebration, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club, by special arrangement with Gorgeous Entertainment, that highlights the extraordinary six-decade career of director and producer Harold Prince. 

Known for staging “the ultimate in intimate productions” (The New York Times), On Site Opera (OSO) presents the U.S. premiere and new site-specific production of Darius Milhaud's La mère coupable (The Guilty Mother). For the premiere, OSO partners with the Darius Milhaud Society and the award-winning International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). The site-specific production celebrates the 125th birthday of Milhaud and is dedicated to Katharine Warne, composer and founder of the Darius Milhaud Society. La mère coupable also marks the completion of OSO's three-year Figaro Project, in which the company is staging lesser-known operatic adaptations of French playwright Beaumarchais' (1732-1799) famed trilogy of Figaro plays.

On Sunday and Monday, April 9 and 10, 2017 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents performance highlights and moderated discussion with Grammy-nominated American Composer Mason Bates on his first opera, The (Re)volution of Steve Jobs prior to its world premiere with Santa Fe Opera. 

A tortuous love triangle involving the King of Sweden. A mysterious fortune teller who predicts that the King will soon die. An assassination plot. Few of Giuseppe Verdi's operas contain as many bewitching elements as his 1859 masterpiece Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball), which opens at Florida Grand Opera on April 29, 2017, in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County's Ziff Ballet Opera House.

Ars Lyrica Houston, the Grammy-nominated early music ensemble, announces its 2017/18 season: Artful Women: Muse, Heroine, Musician, and Patron features a wide range of musical works by, for, and about women.

Bristol Riverside Theatre hosts its 30th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, June 3 at 5:00 PM.  The evening honors Keith Baker's 25-year tenure as Artistic Director at BRT and concludes the 30th anniversary season of BRT. 

Lyric Opera of Kansas City concludes its 59th season with Gilbert & Sullivan's delightful comic operetta The Pirates of Penzance  April 22, 26, 28, 29, and 30 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be sung in English with English titles. High res production and artists' photos can be downloaded here .

Opera Santa Barbara will conclude its 23rd season with the company's premiere production of Giacomo Puccini's sensuous and poignant operetta La Rondine at the historic Granada Theatre on April 28 and 30. Performances will take place at 7:30 pm on Friday, April 28, and at 2:30 pm on Sunday, April 30. Ranging in price from $29 to $204, tickets can be purchased at www.granadasb.org or by calling 805-899-2222. 

The Dallas Opera is thrilled to present—for the first time on our stage—Vincenzo Bellini's suspense-filled masterpiece of the bel canto repertoire, NORMA, starring the phenomenal South African-born soprano Elza van den Heever in the title role of a Druid priestess wronged by the man she loves.

???????Director of Opera Studies and Associate Professor at University of South Carolina School of Music Ellen Douglas Schlaefer received USITT's 2017 Wally Russell Professional Mentor Award at USITT 2017 in St. Louis.