Houston Grand Opera News

Houston Grand Opera's HGOco presents a?oeExploring Your Creative Identity,a?? a new eight-week course for those 55 and older that offers participants the opportunity to discover and cultivate a variety of creative practices. This a?oecreative aginga?? course is part of HGO's Seeking the Human Spirit initiative and embodies the 2019-20 theme of a?oeidentity.a?? The group taking the course will collectively produce an original work of art based on the a?oeidentitya?? motif. Singing, song composition, improvisational acting, creative writing, and expressive movement sessions led by industry professionals will take participants through the creative process. No previous experience is required.

The cast of 'ANNE FRANK, a musical', based on Anne Frank's life will feature 12 artists on stage to recreate Anne Frank's life filled with the touching music and lyrics written by Jean Pierre Hadida. This production marks the U.S Off-Broadway Premiere of this successful French musical which will be performed for the first time in English (adapted by Dylan Hadida). Directed and produced by David Serero, this new Off-Broadway production will take place at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street New York 10016), originally produced by Francine Disegni for Broadway Mad Production, Simon & Michal Kalfon.

a?oeWest Side Story,a?? one of the most iconic American musicals of all time, continues Moonlight Stage Productions 39th summer season with performances from August 14 - 31, 2019 at 8:00 p.m.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announces single tickets to the 2019a?'20 season will be available on Monday, Aug. 5 at HGO.org. There is truly something for everyone in HGO's 65th season, which features a diverse set of operas containing epic biblical dramas, love triangles, dangerous curses, heart-filling family narratives, stories of true love, tales of revenge, and whimsical quests.

On Saturday, July 20, the Santa Fe Opera will introduce Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa to audiences for the first time in the company's 63 year history. A co-production between Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera and the English National Opera, David Alden's production of Jenůfa, now adapted to the Santa Fe Opera's stage, updates the mis-en-scène from an isolated, tight-knit community in 19th-century Moravia to an impoverished industrial section of Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. Alden's staging won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production when it was produced at the English National Opera, and its 2016 revival there received additional critical acclaim. The Independent gave it a five-star review, headlining it as “brilliantly effective.” The Sunday Times proclaimed, “David Alden's staging…takes this coruscating music-drama a notch higher, turning the screw of the drama inexorably, shatteringly, ultimately movingly. Janáček's uplifting conclusions…is one of the most beautiful 'happy ends' in opera.”

Da Camera of Houston's 2019-20 season launches with Bon Appetit!, an evening of surrealist and culinary musical delights, at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center on Saturday, September 21 at 7 p.m. The first of several Da Camera performances this season to prominently feature talented women, the concert is titled after composer Lee Hoiby's comedic operatic take on Julia Child's 1970s television show, with soprano Abigail Fischer as the beloved chef. The program also features the renowned Imani Winds performing Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and acclaimed American vocalist Ryan McKinny in his Da Camera debut performing Francis Poulenc's delightfully absurd Le bal masque. 

John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles delighted operagoers at The Glimmerglass Festival July 13 in the company's new production of the work.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announces that HGOco, its education and community engagement initiative, is the winner of a bronze 2019 Telly Award in the Arts & Culture Category for "Boundless," Episode 1 of the company's innovative Star-Cross'd. web series. "Boundless" was based on "I Can Die Now," a true story by Houstonian Aryana Rose that first aired on The Moth and is one of the most-listened-to segments in The Moth's history.

Join Company XIV this summer at their gorgeous new home, Theatre XIV (383 Troutman St. in Bushwick, Brooklyn), to experience their acclaimed world premiere of QUEEN OF HEARTS, conceived, choreographed and directed by Drama Desk Award nominee Austin McCormick.

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat opened at The Glimmerglass Festival July 6 in the company's first-ever production of America's original "musical play."

With The Glimmerglass Festival's 2019 season approaching, the Cooperstown-based opera and musical theater company has announced programming for 2020, as well as the 2020 Festival's pair of Artists in Residence.

HERE has announced its 2019-2020 season, which marks the OBIE-winning institution's 27th year of producing daring new hybrid performances by artists from all disciplines - theatre, opera, music, art, dance, puppetry, and media art.

Rachel Portman's opera, The Little Prince, will play at Teatro Colon Sept. 28-29 after one performance on May 11.

American Symphony Orchestra announced the 58th season of its three-concert Vanguard series at Carnegie Hall, now expanded to include an additional performance at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. The season also marks the return of the Orchestra's popular series to New York City's Symphony Space-which originally took place between 1998 and 2015-with a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in conjunction with the ASO's celebration of the great composer's 250th birthday. This series combines complete concerts of well-known, major orchestral works with interactive educational demonstrations. The full 2019-20 season runs from October 31, 2019 through March 12, 2020.

AVA is pleased to welcome six new Resident Artists to the opera academy. The incoming class of Resident Artists includes Emily Margevich (soprano), Cody Muller (bass), Zachary Rioux (tenor), Sahel Salam (tenor), Anne Marie Stanley (mezzo-soprano) and Griffen Hogan Tracy (bass). These singers come from across the country, from Philadelphia and Colorado, to Chicago and Princeton, as well as New Brunswick, Canada.

Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce the World Premiere of SAFE SPACE begins tomorrow, June 25, and runs through July 21. This is a new play by Alan Fox; directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien (All My Sons, Henry IV, Hairspray, The Coast of Utopia).

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director, Lawrence Edelson announced today updated casting and additional events to be featured as part of the company's 2019 Summer Festival, beginning May 25th, 2019 and running through July 14th, 2019.  In addition to the three previously announced productions of The Daughter of the Regiment, the world premiere of Ellen West, and Hansel and Gretel, Opera Saratoga will present a new series of master classes; a community symposium on

On Sunday, June 16, Washington, D.C.'s theatre community gathered to celebrate the end of MICHAEL KAHN's 33-year tenure as Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company with musical and dramatic performances, special guests from the worlds of entertainment, politics, and media, and a mayoral proclamation.

San Francisco Opera presents Antonin Dvo?ak's Rusalka at the War Memorial Opera House, June 16-28, in David McVicar's "thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly executed" (Chicago Tribune) production. The Czech fairy tale opera features a cast headed by Rachel Willis-Sorensen in her role debut as Rusalka,Brandon Jovanovich as the Prince, Jamie Barton as Ježibaba, bass Kristinn Sigmundsson as Vodnik and Sarah Cambidge as the Foreign Princess. South Korean maestra and Houston Grand Opera Principal Guest Conductor Eun Sun Kim leads the cast and San Francisco Opera Orchestra in her first Company engagement. Chorus Director Ian Robertson prepares the chorus.

Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce the cast of SAFE SPACE (June 25 - July 21) is now in rehearsal.The new play is by Alan Fox; directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien (All My Sons, Henry IV, Hairspray, The Coast of Utopia). The play will star Mercedes Ruehl (Torch Song, Hustlers, Bay Street's Viva la Vida!), Sasha Diamond (Blindspot, The Romanoffs, Murphy Brown) and Rodney Richardson (The Day Shall Come, CBS's FBI, Somebody's Daughter). Tickets are now on sale by calling the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or online at www.baystreet.org.  The Box Office is open daily from 11 am - show time.