The show will go on at Houston Grand Opera–somewhere
Despite the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Houston Grand Opera’s fall productions of Verdi’s La Traviata and Handel’s Julius Caesar will go on as scheduled. The question is: where?
“Our beloved Wortham Theater Center is more damaged than previously thought,” artistic director Patrick Summers and managing director Perryn Leech wrote Thursday in a letter to staff that also went out through social media. “Houston Grand Opera will proceed with our first two operas, La Traviata and Julius Caesar, in the fall and we are actively working out new locations for these performances. We will announce the details as soon as they are confirmed.”
Flood waters from an adjacent waterway, Buffalo Bayou, entered the Wortham center during the hurricane and damaged the stage of the Brown Theater, which HGO shares with Houston Ballet. The water also got into the center’s basement, swamping HGO’s costume and wig shops. Costumes for La Traviata and Julius Caesar avoided damage thanks to staffers who moved them to higher floors before Harvey hit.
Houston Ballet, which was to have opened its season in Wortham tonight, rescheduled its two fall programs for abbreviated runs in late September and October in nearby Sarofim Hall in the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. The ballet will perform a mixed-repertoire program in Sarofim Hall on October 26-27, roughly in the middle of the period HGO’s two operas are scheduled to run.
HGO is still selling tickets for its entire season, the letter from Summers and Leech says, and people who already have tickets need not take any action. The company’s Customer Care Center is reachable through a temporary phone number, 713-315-2599, and through e-mail at [email protected]. The company’s website, hgo.org, is now back online after being disrupted by the storm.
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