As a contributing editor at DM, I get to nominate the Texas contingent—a job I take seriously, as I spend the year considering whom I might put forward for that honor.
HGOco turns seven years old this year. A scrappy, energetic initiative dedicated to making an opera company relevant to the city it serves, it has taken opera out of the Big House downtown and planted it in unexpected places all over the city:
Los Angeles-born and Juilliard-trained baritone Ryan McKinny has made Houston his home. A+C music writer Cortney Jacobs caught up with the rising singer and Houston Grand Opera Studio alum the day before he started rehearsals at HGO for Rigoletto, which runs Jan. 24-Feb. 9.
What captured Houston Grand Opera Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers’ imagination as he sat down to play through the score of a lost opera by Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Gary Gibbs has served as the Executive Director of the Texas Commission on the Arts since 2007. Prior to joining the TCA, Gibbs served as Director of Education and Outreach at Houston Grand Opera for sixteen years.
There are two sides to every story, but it’s easy to pick a favorite when the fight is between a sniveling Count and a fiery gypsy. Verdi’s ever-popular Il trovatore, Houston Grand Opera’s last production of the season, shows why revenge is something to savor. First performed in Rome in 1853, the music in this opera is structured very differently from Wagner’s [...]
