Houston Grand Opera’s ‘Giving Voice’ gives platform for Black opera singers By Chris Gray, Correspondent
Appearing in Houston Grand Opera’s production of “The Pearl Fishers” in early 2019, Lawrence Brownlee looked around him and experienced something of a revelation.
“The cast was so beautifully diverse, and I just thought, ‘Wow, this is great,’ recalls the Ohio-born singer. “Houston Grand Opera has a longstanding tradition of doing color-blind casting anyway, and so to see that they were continuing that idea was something that spoke to me.”
Brownlee is, simply put, one of the world’s leading operatic tenors. For HGO, he’s appeared in six productions since 2007, also including Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio” as well as Rossini’s “The Italian Girl in Algiers” and “The Barber of Seville.” Hoping to cultivate the same kind of diversity in the audience that he saw onstage, he used his connections with the company t
The bells are jingling and the carolers are singing as we quickly approach the homestretch this holiday season, and we’ve rounded up some of the best of the best seasonal offerings across Houston’s virtual stages in the coming week. From irreverent to wistful, there’s a little something for everyone.
If you’re in the mood for something heartwarming, familiar and family friendly that’s not seasonally on the nose, how about a musical retelling of a classic fairy tale? The Ensemble Theatre is currently presenting an archival production of the African American Shakespeare Company’s
Cinderella, which the Ensemble staged three years in a row. In a 2011 review, the