It was a good night for women everywhere. Read my review at Houstonia Magazine.
HGO’s Norma
HGO’s West Side Story
Some fantastic dancing and singing on Friday night at Houston Grand Opera, though not often at the same time. Read my review at Houstonia Magazine.
HGO’s Elektra
Nothing comes of pining for what could have been, but that’s where I found myself on Friday night at Houston Grand Opera’s Elektra. With reigning soprano Christine Goerke in the title role, I couldn’t help myself. Read my review at Houstonia.
HGO’s Julius Caesar
A beautiful opera, no doubt about it. And it fared much better in the cavernous George R. Brown Convention Center than last week’s La Traviata. Read my review at Houstonia.
Opera after a Hurricane
How do you review an opera after a natural disaster like Hurricane Harvey wipes out its hall for a season? It’s not anything I ever learned in school. At Houston Grand Opera’s season opening night of La Traviata on Friday, I heard all kinds of mixed emotions from the audience who, replete in black tie, clambered around the George R. Brown Convention Center hall HGO had valiantly converted into an opera theatre. Take a look at the varying reviews coming out. At Houstonia Magazine, mine is but one version of what’s going on and how to talk about it. Particularly, I admire Joseph Campana’s review at Culturemap–do check it out too.
Mozart’s Seraglio; Frank’s Conquest
Two pieces at Houstonia Magazine this week: the first, a review of Houston Grand Opera’s Abduction from the Seraglio in which Ryan Speedo Green stole the show, and the second, an interview with Gabriela Lena Frank about the world premiere of her Conquest Requiem this weekend with the Houston Symphony.
Houston World Premiere
The Rothko Chapel meets chamber opera: A collaboration of librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed and composer Laura Kaminsky, Some Light Emerges takes its premise from one of my favorite places. Read my interview with Campbell at Houstonia Magazine. It premieres March 16.
Verdi’s Requiem at HGO
I have a lot of memories of this work, and with an opera company at the helm, it was a refined performance. But the thing I’ll remember probably won’t be the music (Sasha Cooke, resilient hero, my hat is off to you). Read my review at Houstonia.
Nixon in China, Trump in America
On Inauguration Day, this opera hit close to home. Read my review at Houstonia Magazine.
HGO’s Season is Here!
And it opens with two contrasting (I use the term lightly) operas. I felt pretty indifferent to Donizetti’s Elixir of Love–in and of itself as an opera, it’s kind of inconsequential–but Gounod’s Faust! That opera is built for greatness. It was beautiful. A simply exquisite experience overall. You can read my reviews of Elixir and Faust at Houstonia Magazine.
Girl at the Opera 