Houston Grand Opera News

Five decades later and still blazing new trails, Meredith Monk began preparation for her Fiftieth Year celebration with the January 29 announcement of her appointment as the 2014/15 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. Her spring calendar, a prelude to her 50th anniversary events, is crammed with New York, national and international performances, record and CD releases, workshops and residencies designed to showcase Monk's groundbreaking work past and present.

Michael Pennington, two-time Olivier Award nominee, an artist of international stature and one of England's greatest classical actors, will play the title role in William Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear directed by Arin Arbus. For the second production in Theatre for a New Audience's inaugural season at its first permanent home, the new Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place in Brooklyn, Mr. Pennington leads a company of 22 actors. King Lear begins previews March 14 for an opening March 27 and a run through May 4.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) consistently brings the best the opera world has to offer to Houston stages. Time and time again, they cast operas with incredible talent and put on productions that are visually stunning as well. Their latest production of RIGOLETTO is no exception. Everything that makes performances at HGO exciting was perfectly in place. The auditorium was buzzing with excitement about the show, the cast was vocally impressive and on point, and the orchestra was playing with all the gusto and pizzazz that Giuseppe Verdi's darkly toned score requires.

Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for the world premiere of a new comedy by Theresa Rebeck, Fool. In Rebeck's new comedy, two kings get together and place a wager on their fools - a jester competition, and the funniest one gets to keep his head. Two evil minions have a lot to say about this, but not as much as the kitchen wench. And what's the queen been up to all night? A dramatical comical farcical tragical play about power, love and laughter, set in a medieval kitchen. Adult Language, Adult Situations, Beheadings.

It might surprise many to find that the original 1935 Broadway production of 'PORGY AND BESS' ran only 124 performances. The reasons were many including the all Black cast, some of the overtones of the script were perceived by some to be 'too Negro,' the opera format was considered 'not Broadway,' while some railed that it 'had racial overtones.' Other suppositions were that the heavy dependence of a strong story line was not a familiar format during the era of escapist comedies, follies and vaudeville. Not to be overlooked was the fact that the production lasted four hours, with two intermissions.

Musica Sacra, the longest continuously-performing professional chorus in New York City, will present a performance in honor of Women's History Month featuring works by acclaimed composers Meredith Monk and Jocelyn Hagen at New York's Alice Tully Hall on Monday, March 31, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.

On Sunday, February 9 at 3:00pm, The Greenwich Village Orchestra, led by Metropolitan Opera conductor Pierre Vallet, will perform a concert to include excerpts form Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, Ravel's Sheherazade with Grammy Award-wining mezzo-soprano Sasha Cook, and Brahms' Symphony No. 4. Now in its 27th season, the ensemble performs at Washington Irving Auditorium (40 Irving Place) near Union Square.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has announced the winners for the 26th Annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers that took place the evening of January 30 at the Wortham Theater Center's Cullen Theater in front of a capacity crowd.

David B. Devan, General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia, today announced the commissioning of a new opera based on the life of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker (1920-1955), one of the most influential soloists in the history of jazz and a central figure in the development of bebop. American tenor Lawrence Brownlee will star as Parker in a work written for him by composer Daniel Schnyder, with a libretto by poet and playwright Bridgette A. Wimberly. Soprano Angela Brownwill costar as Charlie's mother, Addie Parker. The opera is being developed in partnership with Gotham Chamber Opera.

Tonight, January 28, 2014 at 7:30pm at Opera America's National Opera Center, New York Festival of Song opens the 2013-14 edition of its forward-looking NYFOS Next series with MARK ADAMO & FRIENDS.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announced today another bold season of firsts for 2014–15. As Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers and Managing Director Perryn Leech revealed, coming attractions include the world premiere of A Christmas Carolby Iain Bell—the company's 55th new commission —from award-winning Dickens authority Simon Callow; the continuation of HGO's firstRing cycle, with the North American premiere of La Fura dels Baus's groundbreaking take on Die Walküre; the American premieres of Sir Nicholas Hytner's Magic Flute and Lee Blakeley's Sweeney Todd; and a host of career-shaping artistic role debuts that speak to Patrick Summers's gift for casting. Together with the company's first presentation of John Cox's Otello, and the returns of Göran Järvefelt's belovedCosì fan tutte and Michael Grandage's hit staging of Madame Butterfly, these rich offerings serve once again to illustrate some of the ways that HGO—still the only opera company with two Grammys, two Emmys, and a Tony—epitomizes “one model of what a forward-looking opera company could be” (Greg Sandow, Arts Journal).

Houston Grand Opera is kicking off 2014 with the most harrowing and exhausting evening of opera I have ever experienced, and as an audience member I couldn't be more thrilled. If you're simply looking for entertainment, you'll be better off seeing RIGOLETTO (the other opera being performed in repertory with THE PASSENGER this January at Houston Grand Opera). However, if you're searching for a cerebral, gripping, and altogether emotional experience, then Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) US Premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Alexander Medvedev's THE PASSENGER delivers everything you're wanting and so much more.

The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2013/2014 winter season with Così fan tutte (or The School for Lovers), Mozart's wry comedy about romantic love, fidelity and temptation. Sung in Italian with English SURTITLES, the COC's Così fan tutte comes to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts for 10 performances today, January 18 and January 24, 29, February 1, 6, 7*, 9, 15, 18, 21, 2014.

Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, announced today that the company will present a new production of Richard Wagner's monumental four-opera masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) starting in 2016-17.

One of the most popular American operas, Susannah is the tale of an innocent Tennessee mountain girl who is accused of sinful behavior by the church-going elders of the town. Written in the 1950s the opera is surprisingly modern in its treatment of women's empowerment. Carlisle Floyd wrote this opera while a professor at Florida State University and our cast will feature a member of the original cast! Mr. Floyd will be in residence the week prior to the performances and events featuring him will be announced at a later date.

Three sopranos will sing their first Met performances of the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Met this season.

The Canadian Opera Company unveiled a season dominated by the most important, respected and talked-about artists working on the operatic world stage today at a public launch of its 2014/2015 season at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG (Steven Blier, Artistic Director • Michael Barrett, Associate Artistic Director) concludes its 2013-14 Mainstage series at Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Music Center with WARSAW SERENADE.

Stark Naked Theatre Company is kicking off 2014 with two plays, Brian Friel's FAITH HEALER and Conor McPherson's THE GOOD THIEF, being performed in repertory. John Tyson is directing both productions. FAITH HEALER stars Philip Lehl, Kim Tobin, and John Tyson, and Santry Rush is reprising his role in THE GOOD THIEF. In the midst of their busy rehearsal schedule, I got to speak with all four artists about the two plays.

The February broadcasts of The New York Philharmonic This Week - the weekly radio series of concerts and recordings by the New York Philharmonic, hosted by Alec Baldwin - begin with Music Director Alan Gilbert leading the Philharmonic in Beethoven's Fidelio Overture and Symphony No. 1; Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, with Lisa Batiashvili as soloist; and Gershwin's An American in Paris. The following week, guest conductor Andrey Boreyko will lead the Philharmonic in a performance of Stravinsky's The Song of the Nightingale; Mozart's Bassoon Concerto, with Philharmonic Principal Bassoon Judith LeClair as soloist; and Zemlinsky's The Mermaid, Fantasy for Orchestra.