World premiere of ‘Intelligence’ set to open season
Houston Grand Opera thinks so highly of its next world premiere, Jake Heggie’s “Intelligence,” that it’s opening its next season with it — a first in HGO’s nearly 70-year history.
Eight years in the making, “Intelligence” tells the true story of a woman from a prominent Richmond, Va., family and one of the family’s female slaves who created a secret pro-Union spy ring that helped turn the tide of the
Civil War. Created with librettist Gene Scheer and director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Brooklyn dance company Urban Bush Women, it’s one of several productions in HGO’s 202324 season — as well as Wagner’s “Parsifal,” Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” Mozart’s
“Don Giovanni” and even “The Sound of Music” — that explores the shifting nature of truth.
“We just believe in the piece so much,” says HGO general director and CEO Khori Dastoor. “We believe in Jawole, and how this will lean into what’s true about opera, what opera does best, (against) the grand, sweeping story of the Civil War. This is a huge American epic … we were so proud of it that we wanted to open the season with it and celebrate.”
“Intelligence” is Heggie’s 10th full-length opera overall and fifth HGO commission. Maturity is another thread running through the season — “Falstaff ” and “Parsifal” were Verdi and Wagner’s final operas, while “Butterfly” and “Giovanni” came well after Puccini and Mozart had established themselves. Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II died shortly after “Sound of Music” opened on Broadway; it was his and composer Richard Rodgers’ final collaboration.
Several productions are what HGO artistic and music director Patrick Summers calls “company works” — operas that work best in the hands of musicians tempered by many years of working together. “Parsifal,” Wagner’s mystical take on the Holy Grail legend, is another prime example.
“Conducting and singing are very different in your third decade of professional life than in your first,” Summers says. “We were reflecting this week on the youth obsession of the culture and how at odds that is with the performing arts. You don’t perform ‘Parsifal’ in your 20s; or you shouldn’t.”
As usual, many of the world’s leading opera stars will make their way to the Wortham Center, including HGO studio alum Jamie Barton and fellow soprano Janai Brugger, making her company debut, in “Intelligence.” The “Falstaff ” cast includes HGO favorites Reginald Smith Jr. (in the title role), Nicole Heaston, Blake Denson and Andrea Carroll. Tenor Russell Thomas and soprano Christine Goerke star in “Parsifal” under the baton of HGO principal guest conductor Eun Sun Kim.
Acclaimed soprano Ailyn Perez, currently starring in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Falstaff,” will return to Houston to play Cio-Cio-San in “Butterfly” alongside tenor Yongzhao Yu and HGO studio alum SunLy Pierce; while heading up the “Giovanni” cast are Luca Pisaroni, Andriana Chuchman, Ryan McKinny — the title role in HGO’s 2019 production, but here playing the amoral nobleman’s virtuous servant Leporello — tenor Kang Wang’s company debut as Don Ottavio and Houstonian Sasha Cooke as Donna Elvira.
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, who recently starred in HGO’s “Werther,” will play Maria in “The Sound of Music,” with baritone Alexander Birch Elliott as Capt. Von Trapp.
Next February at Asia Society Texas, HGO will present yet another world premiere in “The Big Swim,” Meilina Tsui and Melisa Tien’s chamber opera about the great race between animals of the Chinese zodiac to be first on the Lunar New Year calendar. In a concert setting, seasonal staples Giving Voice, the Butler Studio Showcase, and the Concert of Arias will all return.
Subscriptions to the coming season are now available through houstongrandopera.org; individual tickets will go on sale later this summer.
“Our audiences are back in a way that we’re not seeing in other American cites, and so we kind of feel like, ‘If not us, then no one,’" says Dastoor. “I think with this season we want to make a statement that the arts are not on life support. We are healthy, we are thriving.”