Houston Grand Opera News

American Lyric Theater (ALT) and The Morgan Library & Museum present ALT Alumni: Composers & Librettists in Concert on Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 3pm at The Morgan Library & Museum in the Gilder Lehrman Hall, 225 Madison Avenue, NYC. 

On March 24 and 25 at 7:30 PM, guest conductor Richard Egarr takes to the podium, leading the Utah Symphony in an evening of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Also featured on the program are Utah Symphony Principal Flutist Mercedes Smith and Concertmaster Madeline Adkins. Tickets start at $21 ($15 for students), and can be purchased at www.utahsymphony.org or by calling (801) 533-6683.

Parents, we heard you loud and clear: You want more GARBAGE ISLAND! Rec Room Arts' newest, original production, GARBAGE ISLAND, an original live sketch show for children ages 2 - 6, opened in February and ran to sold-out crowds for 4 weeks straight. The response was fantastic! Houston parents lined up out the door to give their children the opportunity to enjoy the wacky characters and sustainability-themed 30-minute performance, while they enjoyed a break…and a mimosa.

After a months-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named six young singers as the winners of the nation's most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $15,000 cash prize and the prestige and exposure that come with winning the competition that launched the careers of many of opera's biggest stars.

Asia Society Texas Center will host Representation and 21 st Century Responsibilities in the Performing Arts, a free panel discussion and public forum in collaboration with Houston Grand Opera (HGO) on Friday, March 31, at 7 p.m.

The production will be conducted by MasterVoices' Artistic Director Ted Sperling and will feature previously announced stars Kelli O'Hara, Bill Irwin, Lauren Worsham, Christopher Fitzgerald - with Jonathan Freeman, Chris Sullivan, and Jeffrey Schecter just joining the lineup - alongside 130 singers of MasterVoices, with Orchestra of St. Luke's.

Following yesterday's highly competitive semi-final competition, nine young singers will advance to the final phase of the Metropolitan Opera's 2017 National Council Auditions, America's most prestigious vocal competition.

Houston Grand Opera's HGOco announces auditions for the Bauer Family High School Voice Studio (HSVS) for students entering their junior or senior year of high school beginning in the fall of 2017. Applications are now being accepted on HGO's website at HSVS auditions. The deadline has been extended to March 24 at 5 p.m.

???????Casting has been announced for Cameron Mackintosh's spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for the premiere West Palm Beach engagement at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. 

Houston Grand Opera presents Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods), the final installment of Wagner's epic Ring cycle, featuring a new generation of leading Wagnerians including Simon O'Neill as Siegfried and Christine Goerke as Brunnhilde, starting April 22.

SOULSKIN Dance is proud to present a brand new work SATIN & SWING as part of their 4th Season in San Francisco. Artistic Director and Choreographer Adrianna Thompson seeks to engage audiences in a study of two eras, the 1920s and the present. Dance Mission Theatre transforms into a time machine, transporting us back to the 1920s. Glitz and glam sparkle from the dingy corners of a speakeasy. Raucous jazz blares, bringing bejeweled and sequined dancing flapper girls to life. An evening of indulgence has begun. The entry notes of Prince's 'Erotic City' ring in your ears, an echo from another time. Suddenly you notice the writing on the wall. The crash of overindulgence is imminent.

SOULSKIN Dance will present a brand new work SATIN & SWING as part of their 4th Season in San Francisco.

Abingdon Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Tony Speciale, presents the world premiere of CHESS MATCH NO. 5, conceived and directed by Anne Bogart, with text arranged by Jocelyn Clarke from the words of John Cage.

On Tuesday, April 11 at 8:00PM at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, the American Classical Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the composer's towering final achievement. Unique among the seasons' 9th performances, this concert will be performed on period instruments, using the tempos and performance techniques of its premiere nearly 200 years ago. The thrilling textures and nuanced blend of period instruments with the voices of the highly acclaimed ACO Chorus will transport listeners back to the sound world of the early 19th century, while bringing them closer to the composer's intentions and original markings. The result is a deeper, more fulfilling musical experience of this great work. To provide greater understanding, Maestro Thomas Crawford will deliver an introduction, with orchestra and chorus onstage to perform excerpts, before conducting the 70-minute Symphony. This combination of pre-symphony talk and period instrument performance offers rare and meaningful immersion into this much-loved symphony. Soloists are Sherezade Panthaki, Michael Sumuel, Helen Karloski and Kang Wang.

On Tuesday, April 11 at 8:00PM at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, the American Classical Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the composer's towering final achievement. Unique among the seasons' 9th performances, this concert will be performed on period instruments, using the tempos and performance techniques of its premiere nearly 200 years ago. The thrilling textures and nuanced blend of period instruments with the voices of the highly acclaimed ACO Chorus will transport listeners back to the sound world of the early 19th century, while bringing them closer to the composer's intentions and original markings.  The result is a deeper, more fulfilling musical experience of this great work. To provide greater understanding, Maestro Thomas Crawford will deliver an introduction, with orchestra and chorus onstage to perform excerpts, before conducting the 70-minute Symphony. This combination of pre-symphony talk and period instrument performance offers rare and meaningful immersion into this much-loved symphony. Soloists are Sherezade Panthaki, Michael Sumuel, Helen Karloski and Kang Wang.

Soprano Amber Wagner, a 2010 George London Award Winner, and baritone Reginald Smith, Jr., who won his George London Award in 2015, make their New York recital debuts at the final program in the George London Foundation Recital Series, and the final event in the foundation's season, on Sunday, April 2, 2017, at 4:00 pm. Alan Darling is the recital's pianist; a reception with the artists follows the concert.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) General Director and CEO Susan T. Danis today unveiled plans for the company's 2017-18 season. Anchored by the theme 'Divas to Die For,' FGO's seventy-seventh season will boast a diverse range of works about women on dangerous emotional journeys.

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) presents 'The Perfect American,' a Chicago premiere opera by American composer Philip Glass. Based on American novelist Peter Stephan Jungk's 2001 novel, 'Der Konig von Amerika,' Glass' opera imagines the last three months of Walt Disney's life.