Critic’s Choice for 2024-25
Tate: Woodland Songs. Dover Quartet. Sept. 17 in Houston, Oct. 19 in Fort Worth.
Chamber Music Houston co-commissioned Jerod Tate’s new work, a suite portraying creatures of the wild. Tate’s score builds on Chickasaw melodies using classical techniques, and the Dover Quartet pairs it with the “American” Quartet by Antonin Dvořák, another believer in melding folk music and classical. In Houston, chambermusichouston.org; in Fort Worth, cmsfw.org
Wagner: The Ring of the Nibelung. Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Oct. 5-20.
As the first U.S. orchestra in decades to bring Wagner’s Ring into the concert hall—the Cleveland Orchestra had an aborted attempt in the 1990s—the Dallas Symphony Orchestra stakes out a place in history when it completes the cycle it launched last spring. Music director Fabio Luisi and company will perform Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, then traverse the entire saga. Soprano Lise Lindstrom’s Brünnhilde and bass-baritone Mark Delavan’s Wotan head the cast. dallassymphony.org
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande. Dallas Opera. Nov. 8-16.
Dallas Opera is finally getting around to its first production of Pelléas, Debussy’s ultra-atmospheric tale of forbidden love. Baritone Benjamin Appl, who performed Schubert’s Winterreise for the company’s recital series in 2022, returns as Pelléas; soprano Lauren Snouffer portrays Mélisande. Ludovic Morlot conducts. dallasopera.org
Rossini: Cenerentola. Houston Grand Opera. Oct. 25-Nov. 9.
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard nearly stole the show with her passionate Charlotte in HGO’s 2023 production of Massenet’s Werther, then she transformed into a warm, congenial Maria von Trapp in last spring’s The Sound of Music. Now she brings her glowing voice to Rossini’s Cinderella, surrounded by a cast that also includes veteran buffo Alessandro Corbelli as Don Magnifico. houstongrandopera.org
Heggie: Earth 2.0. Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Dec. 6-8.
Jake Heggie is mainly known for opera, but the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is offering him a change by commissioning and premiering Earth 2.0. Set to a text by Iranian-American writer Anita Amirrezvani, the work depicts the conflict between humans and the planet. Music director Robert Spano will take the helm, with countertenor Key’mon Murrah as soloist. The program includes another earth-shaking work: Beethoven’s Eroica. fwsymphony.org
Zemlinsky: The Mermaid. Houston Symphony. March 21-23.
Long before Disney turned The Little Mermaid into a megabucks media franchise, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale inspired an opulent orchestral score by Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Houston Symphony music director Juraj Valčuha has long advocated for it. He will also lead his group in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with pianist Kirill Gerstein at center stage. houstonsymphony.org
Works by Vivaldi and others. Les Arts Florissants. March 26 in Houston, March 27 in Austin.
The celebrated period-instrument ensemble swings through Texas on its tour commemorating the 300th anniversary of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Young French violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte will solo in the famed concertos, and the group will complement them with works by composers who inspired Vivaldi or drew from him. In Houston performingartshouston.org; in Austin, texasperformingarts.org
Handel: Theodora. Ars Lyrica. March 29.
After cutting its teeth on intense Handel fare such as Agrippina, Houston’s baroque ensemble turns to the more intimate Theodora. One of Handel’s last works, the oratorio depicts an early Christian martyr: Ordered to serve as a prostitute for a pagan temple, Theodora submits to execution instead. The score’s attractions include “Venus Laughing from the Skies,” a spirited chorus of heathens, and “O Love Divine,” the eloquent finale.arslyricahouston.org
Works by Allegri, Pärt and others. Houston Chamber Choir. April 5.
The choir’s 30th-anniversary season will be the last led by its founder and artistic director, Robert Simpson. In a program dubbed “From Darkness to Light,” he will conduct Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere—which the young Mozart, so the story goes, wrote out after one hearing—and Arvo Pärt’s dramatic setting of the same text. Light will then emerge thanks to spirituals and other works.houstonchamberchoir.org
Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. May 21-June 7.
The contest’s 2022 edition launched one of the Cliburn’s most successful winners of recent years, Yunchan Lim. You can be the first to judge whether the contestants who come to Fort Worth next spring have any such prospects. British pianist Paul Lewis will chair the jury. cliburn.org
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