Houston Grand Opera News

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) offers more opportunities to look inside its operas through its initiative, "Viewpoints." These collaborations with Chicago cultural institutions draw audiences even further into the passionate world of COT and offer new insight and perspective on the artistry and vision of upcoming productions.

The new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is holding a Community Day celebration on Sunday, October 27, 2013 from 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. to celebrate the delivery of the new venue to Beverly Hills and the greater Los Angeles community. The Wallis transforms the Beverly Hills city block, facing Santa Monica Boulevard, between Crescent and Canon Drives, into the first performing arts center to be built in Beverly Hills: a vibrant arts destination and a major cultural and education hub for audiences of every age, with two distinct, elegant buildings: the renovated historic 1934 Italianate-style Beverly Hills Post Office, now the Paula Kent Meehan Historic Building, and a new, contemporary 500-seat, state-of-the-art Bram Goldsmith Theater.

Giuseppe Verdi's 1871 opera AIDA is a worldwide phenomenon. It has been adapted into several films, Elton John and Tim Rice adapted it into a Broadway musical with the same title, and, as of 2007, New York City's Metropolitan Opera has given over 1,100 performances of the opera, making it their second most frequently produced work. Oozing with spectacle and pageantry, Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) current production of the beloved opera is a spellbinding and sumptuous beginning to their new season.

Theater for a New Audience has announced its 2013-2014 inaugural season, featuring A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, directed by Julie Taymor, KING LEAR, featuring Michael Pennington, and THE KILLER, starring Michael Shannon. Details below!

Tony Award-winner and vocalist Audra McDonald is coming to Houston tonight, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. in the Brown Theater at the Wortham Theater Center, presented by Society for the Performing Arts. Accompanying her on stage will be Houston native Andy Einhorn.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) opens its 2013-14 season tonight with a revival of its classic production of Verdi's Aida. The production, which runs through November 9, is conducted by Italian maestro Antonino Fogliani and stars the National Opera of Ukraine's Liudmyla Monastyrska as Aida, the role that garnered her critical acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera last year. The New York Times described Monastyrska in her U.S. debut in the title role as "gifted with a luscious round soprano that maintains its glow even in the softest notes." Mezzo Dolora Zajick returns to one of her signature roles, Amneris; Italian tenor Riccardo Massi sings Radames; and Texas baritone and HGO Studio alumnus Scott Hendricks sings Aida's father, Amonasro. The production is designed by British designer Zandra Rhodes, directed by Jose Maria Condemi, and choreographed by Dominic Walsh in the inaugural collaboration between HGO and Walsh's Houston-based Dominic Walsh Dance Theater.

Rice University Theatre will present William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Founder's Court, 6100 Main St. Performances are November 6-9 at 7:30 p.m.

For the first time since the 1985-86 season, a new-to-Chicago production of Puccini's beloved Madama Butterfly is about to open its wings at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The Collegiate Chorale announces the addition of two new members of the company's executive team. Ted Sperling and Edward Barnes join Music Director James Bagwell and Executive Director Jennifer Collins as Artistic Director and Producing Director, respectively, effective immediately.

Today, Camp Broadway has announced its roster of guest artists visiting its three-day musical theater dance intensive geared towards dancers ages 14-18, occurring over the Columbus Day weekend, today, October 12-14, 2013.

Minarets from the summer's production of 'Aladdin' shimmering in the backdrop, the 31 young performers of the Bay Area Theatre and Voice Academy in League City belt out their musical quacks and cock-a-doodle-doos.

Boston Baroque and its Founder/Music Director, Martin Pearlman, have chosen to acknowledge a monumental moment in their history with a monument of music: Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, popularly known as the 'Choral' Symphony, which concludes with the uplifting Ode to Joy.

On January 18, 2014, Houston Grand Opera (HGO) presents the American premiere of The Passenger (1968), a powerful Holocaust opera by exiled Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg.

On the occasion of composer Benjamin Britten's centennial, the Met will present its first performances of his 1960 opera A Midsummer Night's Dream in more than a decade. James Conlon leads his first Met performances of the opera, which is directed by Tim Albery in a revival of his acclaimed 1996 production.

On January 18, 2014, Houston Grand Opera (HGO) presents the American premiere of The Passenger (1968), a powerful Holocaust opera by exiled Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Based on a novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz, The Passenger was recognized as "a perfect masterpiece" by Shostakovich but was censored by the Soviet establishment and never performed in Weinberg's lifetime. It premiered at the 2010 Bregenz Festival, and its subsequent UK premiere at the English National Opera took place only thanks to award-winning British director David Pountney, whose staging inspired the Telegraph to write: "Risky though it may be to label a first production 'definitive,' it is hard to imagine it ever being done better." Now HGO brings the same production across the Atlantic, complete with mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt, who "excelled" (New York Times) in the leading role at two European premieres. All five of The Passenger's first American performances (Jan 18-Feb 2) will be led byPatrick Summers, HGO's artistic and music director.

The Dallas Opera, in partnership with the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University, is delighted to introduce the first in a series of new programs hosted by Dallas Opera General Director and CEO Keith Cerny and designed to present informed personal perspectives on the arts.

For the first DG Conservatory event of the fall, the Dramatists Guild is thrilled to team up with the writers who created Behind the Music-al, Kyle Ewalt and Michael Ian Walker, today, October 8, 2013, at 6:00 p.m. The event will take place at the Dramatists Guild's New York office, in the Frederick Loewe Room, 1501 Broadway (between 43rd and 44th Streets), Suite 710. This free seminar is opening a limited number of seats to the public and reservations are required.

The Canadian Opera Company has announced that Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, scheduled to sing the title role in the upcoming production of Britten's Peter Grimes, has had to withdraw from the opening night performance on October 5 for health reasons. Mr. Heppner will return to the role for subsequent performances in the COC's production. Four-time Grammy Award-winning American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey will sing the role of Peter Grimes on October 5.

Arguably the greatest opera of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, comes to the Canadian Opera Company this fall for seven performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts tonight, October 5 and October 8, 11, 17, 20, 23, 26, 2013. Recognized worldwide as the finest dramatic tenor before the public today, Canadian Ben Heppner returns to the COC in one of his favourite roles as the title character in Britten's gripping opera about an alienated fisherman and the seaside village he struggles to inhabit. Peter Grimes is sung in English with English SURTITLES.

Susan Graham - winner of a Grammy, an Opera News Award, Musical America's Vocalist of the Year, and hailed by the New York Times as 'an artist to treasure' - returns for another compelling season, highlighted by three role debuts. As Houston Grand Opera's 2013-14 Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, she undertakes Prince Orlofsky in the company's first staging of Die Fledermaus in 30 years.