New Commissions Highlight Houston Grand Opera’s 2012-13 Season

Houston Grand Opera – the only opera company to have won a Tony, two Grammys, and two Emmys – enhances its 2012-13 line-up with three productions from its Song of Houston project, winner of the National MultiCultural Institute's 2009 Leading Lights Diversity Award.

Thanks to this ongoing initiative, through which the company commissions works that celebrate Houston in all its cultural diversity, the upcoming season boasts the world premieres of two new commissions exploring the city's Korean and Japanese communities in the "East + West" series – plus the return, by popular demand, of José "Pepe" Martínez's Cruzar la cara de la luna ("To Cross the Face of the Moon"). Commissioned in 2010 for Song of Houston, Cruzar, the world's first mariachi opera, proved to be "a multicultural winner" that "succeeded on all fronts" (29-95.com), and it opened the fall 2011 season at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

The revival of Cruzar la cara de la luna opens on HGO's main stage on March 22, 2013, starring baritone Octavio Moreno, an HGO Studio alumnus who represented Mexico in the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. With a libretto by acclaimed writer-director Leonard Foglia, whose credits include directing HGO's world premiere of Jake Heggie's opera Three Decembers, "Cruzar tells a story that speaks to anyone who has roots in a place other than that which they now call home," explains HGO Managing Director, Perryn Leech. He continues, "It is a fantastically moving, dramatic account of three generations of a family dealing with the impact of immigration. As such, it is the perfect story for so many, not only in Houston but throughout the US and around the world."

The first of two new Song of Houston "East + West" commissions celebrates Houston's Korean community. Composed by Jeeyoung Kim – whose numerous honors include National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer awards – to a libretto by the University of Houston's Jane Koh, the new work will premiere during the city's Korean Festival on November 3. This work will be the 50^th world premiere commission that Houston Grand Opera has presented since its founding in 1955. The second new "East + West" commission is a Japanese opera, due to premiere in April 2013. Details will follow shortly.

Houston Grand Opera's legacy of commissioning and premiering new works goes back more than 40 years, and includes commissions from John Adams, Philip Glass, Daniel Catán, André Previn, Carlisle Floyd, Mark Adamo, Jake Heggie, and Christopher Theofanidis, among others. In upcoming seasons, the company expects to commission more works on varying scales, from chamber operas to grand operas, as well as presenting the American premiere of a "lost" opera by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, The Passenger, in 2014. "Commissioning and presenting new work is the life's blood of a 21^st-century opera company," said the company's Artistic and Music Director, Patrick Summers. "It is an investment in the future of our art form, in the artists who will carry our legacy with their voices into the next century, and in the audiences of tomorrow."

In addition to Cruzar, there are six further productions – four of them new – that will appear on HGO's main stage in the 2012-13 season. The first of these is Puccini's La bohème, which launches the season in a new staging by award-winning British director John Caird. To honor 2013's joint bicentennials of Wagner and Verdi, the coming season juxtaposes Tristan und Isolde, starring Ben Heppner and Nina Stemme – both in HGO debuts – in a new contemporary staging by Christof Loy, with a revival of Steven Lawless's unforgettable take on Il trovatore. British conductor Trevor Pinnock leads a strong international cast in Mozart's ensemble masterpiece, Don Giovanni, while Francesca Zambello's new production of Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat brings together stars of Broadway and the opera house in a celebration of America's own contribution to the art. For a more intimate experience, Daniela Barcellona and Lawrence Brownlee star in Rossini's dramma giocoso The Italian Girl in Algiers.