Houston Grand Opera News

She won your heart as Lottie Gee, Billie Holliday, and Bess (and that's been just the past few years). Audra McDonald has grown to be perhaps the greatest talent of this generation of live theatre- and she has six Tony Awards to prove it. From Ragtime to Macbeth, Carousel to A Raisin in the Sun, watch below as Richard Ridge chats with the 2017 SAG nominee as a part of SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Conversations series.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announced today the winners of the 299h annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers that took place on the evening of January 27 at the Wortham Theater Center's Cullen Theater. For the first time, the Concert of Arias was streamed live on Facebook, and viewers were able to cast their votes for an Online Viewers' Choice Award. The winner was announced during the second portion of the program, along with the other winners.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen eight finalists for the 29th annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Theater Center on January 27, at 7 p.m.

Before the 24 hour news cycle and "I am not a crook" became one of the defining pop culture phrases of the '70s, Richard Nixon went to China, the first time a U.S. president ever visited the People's Republic.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen the semifinalists for the 29th annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Theater Center on January 27, at 7 p.m.

???????Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin will return to the Jones Hall stage for Gershwin & Rachmaninoff at 8 p.m. Jan. 27-28 and 2:30 p.m. Jan. 29.

An ensemble of artists committed to exploring the rarely heard music of Louis Durey present six of his unpublished manuscripts, including four North American premieres, on Saturday, February 4 at 4:00 p.m. at La Maison Francaise at New York University as a prelude to a recording to be released this May by New Focus Records.

Please join BroadwayWorld and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation for a special live streamed career retrospective Q&A with Audra McDonald, SAG Award Nominee for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. 

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

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation's leading champion for American opera, is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2017 National Opera Trustee Recognition Awards, selected from a record number of nominations. Now in their 10th year, these awards honor outstanding trustees of U.S. opera companies for their exemplary leadership, generosity and audience-building efforts on behalf of their respective organizations.

Please join BroadwayWorld and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation for a special live streamed career retrospective Q&A with Audra McDonald, SAG Award Nominee for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. 

Playwright Mashuq Deen (New Dramatists Fellow 2022) brings the story of his own transgender journey as a member of a traditional South Asian family and Playwright Catherine Filloux, winner of more than 40 awards for playwriting, activism and peace work, brings her latest work to the stage at New York City's first arts-advocacy festival of its kind, the International Human Rights Art Festival.

The Pepperdine University Flora L. Thornton Opera Program presents Mozart's masterpiece, Don Giovanni, sung in the original Italian, with English supertitles, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday, February 23 and 25, at Smothers Theatre on Pepperdine's Malibu campus.

Michael Mayer's 2013 production of Verdi's Rigoletto, set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino, returns to the Met January 20. Italian conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi makes his company debut leading Željko Lu?i? in the title role opposite Olga Peretyatko as Gilda and Stephen Costello as the Duke.

Are you ready for a new and improved version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA? I love the original, which I first saw in California, when Robert Guillaume (star of Benson) played the role. Of course, I saw it in London's West End and on Broadway, but it's really fun to see the new version right here in Detroit. I know it's hard to believe that PHANTOM could ever be improved upon, but they've worked some magic. The chandelier is more spooky, the catacombs look more like a person actually lives there, the costumes are different, especially the stairway costume in part two - but in this version there is no grand staircase. This phantom uses a lot of pyrotechnics to accompany his magic. You will like the way they descend into the Phantom's lair; that bridge scene what shifted like a teeter totter has been replaced by really cool steps that protrude from dungeon walls. And the best part is at the very end, when the phantom vanishes; it's in a very different way, and I have no idea how he pulled it off.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present the world premiere of Some Light Emerges, a chamber opera created by the acclaimed team of composer Laura Kaminsky and librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, on March 16 and 17 at 7:30 p.m., at the Ballroom at Bayou Place.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock and Music Director Nicola Luisotti today announced plans for the 2017-18 repertory season. The Company's 95th season will open Friday, September 8 with a gala performance of Giacomo Puccini'sTurandot led by Maestro Luisotti and an international cast starring Martina Serafin, Maria Agresta and Brian Jagde.

Opera in the Heights, a cornerstone of Houston's vibrant performing arts community, has appointed Paige Myrick as Executive Director, and Eiki Isomura as Artistic Director, effective January 1, 2017.

Bring the whole family to see Cinderella en España-a universal rags-to-riches tale that explores the beauty of kindness and the ugliness of mistreating others. Seattle Opera will offer its new Spanish/English performance at both its annual Frost Fest on Feb. 4 at Cornish Playhouse, and onMarch 19 at Kirkland Performance Center; ultimately, the production will tour more than 40 elementary schools statewide.

Michael Mayer's 2013 production of Verdi's Rigoletto, set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino, returns to the Met January 20. Italian conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi makes his company debut leading Željko Lu?i? in the title role opposite Olga Peretyatko as Gilda and Stephen Costello as the Duke.