Houston Grand Opera News

Beginning on September 14, the Houston Symphony will dedicate the first 3 weeks of the 2012-2013 Classical Season to the Best of Brahms.

LUZ-a new play by Catherine Filloux (DOG AND WOLF, LEMKIN'S HOUSE)-will be given its world-premiere production this fall, with previews beginning September 28 prior to an official press opening October 4 at La MaMa's First Floor Theatre (74A E. 4 St.) in Manhattan. LUZ is a Watson Arts Project, which presents original theater with a particular emphasis on women. LUZ is scheduled to run through October 14.

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents American baritone Nathan Gunn in concert as part of its Celebrity Series on Sunday, September 23 at 4 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Accompanied by the WNO Orchestra under the baton of Tony Award winner Ted Sperling, Gunn will perform selections from operas by Mozart, Rossini, and Bizet, plus songs by Sondheim and other Broadway composers. American tenor William Burden will join him for a few duets. All three artists will make their WNO debuts with this performance.

Olney Theatre Center continues its 2012 season with the hit musical, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS tonight, August 1 to August 26, 2012.

Olney Theatre Center continues its 2012 season with the hit musical, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS August 1 to August 26, 2012.

Tonight, July 21 at 2:00pm, and Sunday, July 22 at 7:30pm, American Opera Projects, in association with Opera New Jersey, will premiere Blessed Art Thou Amongst Women

The Houston Theater District will celebrate its nineteenth annual Open House event on Sunday, August 26 from noon - 4 pm. An event that Houstonians look forward to at the beginning of each fall, this FREE, family-friendly event will take place in the heart of the Theater District at the Alley Theatre (615 Texas Ave.), Hobby Center for the Performing Arts (800 Bagby), Wortham Theater Center (501 Texas Ave.) and Jones Hall (615 Louisiana Ave.).

When tenor Ernest Revell and soprano Lori Fredrics come together to share the stage at the Enrico Caruso Room in Grotta Azzurra Ristorante, 177 Mulberry Street, in Little Italy tonight, July 17, at 8 PM, they will have taken very different paths to arrive at the same destination at the very same time.

According to Curbed.com, the home of Broadway legend Hal Prince is currently on the market at $22 million. The 74th Street New York City townshouse was purchased three years ago by Prince and his wife at $12.5 million.

Bramwell Tovey leads the New York Philharmonic at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in a program of works by Bernstein, Gershwin, and Tchaikovsky, tonight, July 7, 2012, at 8:00 p.m. Canadian soprano Tracy Dahl will be the soloist in the coloratura aria, "Glitter and Be Gay" from Bernstein's Candide, along with songs by Gershwin, including "The Man I Love" and "Fascinatin' Rhythm," arranged by Mr. Tovey. Also on the program are Three Dance Episodes from Bernstein's On the Town, and two works by Tchaikovsky: music from Act IV of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and the 1812 Overture.

The August 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 conductor Andrey Boreyko as he launches the Philharmonic's 2012 residency at Colorado's Bravo!

Directed by Neil Armfield at the Hampstead Theatre, The Judas Kiss is a fascinating insight into Oscar Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. Focussing on two critical moments in Wilde's last years - the eve of his arrest and the night after his release from two years imprisonment; The Judas Kiss speculates on the consequences of his self-destructive fatalism, betrayal and love without trust. Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox will be joined by Alister Cameron, Tom Colley, Ben Hardy, Cal Macaninch and Kirsty Oswald in The Judas Kiss, David Hare's powerful portrait of the fall from grace of Oscar Wilde.

Lyric Opera of Chicago joins the rest of the international operatic community in mourning the death of the legendary American soprano Evelyn Lear, whose career was one of the most varied and distinguished of any American singer of her time. She died in Sandy Spring, Maryland, at the age of 86.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera and musical theater company, has announced its 2013 season and its partnership in The Festival of American Romantics in Cooperstown, New York.

On Saturday, July 21 at 2:00pm, and Sunday, July 22 at 7:30pm, American Opera Projects, in association with Opera New Jersey, will premiere Blessed Art Thou Amongst Women

During the month of June, Houston Grand Opera (HGO) in conjunction with Asia Society Texas produced and premiered a fantastic and newly commissioned opera New Arrivals, featuring a libretto by Catherine Filloux and music by John Glover. As a whole, New Arrivals is a sensational new opera that will hopefully be performed many more times around the world, presenting a story that deserves to be told, received, and appreciated.

Summer along the Gulf Coast in Texas is certainly here, but Jatson Williams is hard at work preparing a highly anticipated new one-man show, Camping With Gasoline. On the morning of Saturday, June 2, 2012, he gave me a little bit of his time and opened up about the Greater Tuna series, his family, being a father, his writing process, and his new show.

Professional singer and music professor Dr. P tries to shake hands with a parking meter and describes a rose as'a convoluted red form with a linear green attachment.' A man who sees, but does not see, Dr. P suffers from visual agnosia. Unable to recognize objects and faces (including his wife's), he finds a way to make sense of his world through music. LBO goes site-specific again with four performances of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat between today, June 16 and June 24, 2012 at the EXPO Warehouse in Long Beach, CA.

According to the Daily Mail, RAGTIME's Rosalie Craig will join the new stage musical Finding Neverland, about J.M. Barrie's encounter with the Lewelyn Davies family, which inspired him to write Peter Pan.

Catherine Filloux is applying the finishing touches to her highly anticipated, new libretto for Houston Grand Opera's production of New Arrivals. Houston Grand Opera commissioned the piece. Giving Houston and world audiences a sneak peak into the opera, with a score by John Gover, and the story behind its creation, Catherine Filloux took a moment of her time to answer some of my questions.