Opera takes shelter at GRB

Performances will be staged in exhibition hall

After decades of staging productions in the refined space of the Wortham Theater Center, the Houston Grand Opera has a new, temporary home for its fall season: Exhibition Hall A3.

In a move that sets up a host of juxtapositional drama, the city’s premier opera company, a group that has created work performed throughout the world, will stage its next three performances in the George R. Brown Convention Center, a venue more accustomed to hosting business conferences, geek culture gatherings or, recently, the displaced victims of Hurricane Harvey.

In a sense, that makes it a fitting spot for a performing arts group searching for a home after the Wortham was drowned by Harvey’s waters — compromising the downtown venue’s basement, lobby and Brown Theater stage — and forced to close through May. It has been the opera’s performing home since 1987.

Still, it will be a seismic shift as the opera builds a theater setting in the exhibition hall and renames it the “HGO Resilience Theater.” The transition represents a challenge of never-before-seen proportions for the opera company. Meant to accommodate anything from conferences to showrooms, the space has no orchestra pit, no box seats for pre-

ferred guests, no fly space and 700 fewer seats than HGO’s regular home at the Wortham.

Think outside the box

That means a complete rethinking of the opera’s relationship between the audience, the performers and the scenery. HGO’s leaders say they are treating the countless logistical challenges as opportunities and plan to transform their upcoming shows — “La Traviata,” “Julius Caesar” and “The House Without a Christmas Tree” — into unconventional productions, staring with “La Traviata” on Oct. 20.

“We are not going to recreate the Wortham in a space that won’t allow it,” said the HGO’s Music Director Patrick Summers. “So it will be a very different creative journey.”

But what that means exactly is still in the air. The designers and directors for “La Traviata,” for example, are redesigning the production to conform to the new space.

The opera is insisting the show will go on while facing potentially immense financial loss. Perryn Leech, HGO’s managing director, expects between $5 million to $15 million in losses from a combination of physical loss due to flooding and lost ticket revenue.

The opera does not have insurance to cover loss of ticket sales.

Part of the allure of the opera, for some patrons, is the Wortham itself.

Rich Arenschieldt, a season subscriber at the opera, said the Wortham Theater Center was built specifically with HGO in mind and remains one of the country’s finest opera houses, so he expects audiences to be disappointed by the news.

“The problem with Houston is people are spoiled because we have the best theaters in the country,” he said.

Existing ticket holders will have their seats assigned to them in early October.

Casts under contract

And there have been no changes to the artist contracts, meaning the performers patrons expected to see and hear will be participating as planned.

Parking, always an important factor in a city designed for drivers, for the shows will be at the convention center garage on Rusk Street. A sky bridge leads across the street to the HGO’s new performance space.

The HGO does not know how long it will be in that space. The company hopes to stay at the GRB through May. But the spring program, some of which includes giant orchestras and casts, isn’t set in stone due to the possibility of the HGO getting kicked out of the convention center by a competing event.

“We will come up with something,” Leech said. “It’s been a thousand decisions each day. We want people to expect the unexpected.”

Arenschieldt, the season-ticket holder, said HGO’s track record means he’s confident the company can succeed through the adversity.

“They’re not just going to hope for the best,” he said. “That’s not how they became one of the best operas in the nation. I can’t wait to see how they make this work.”