“Houston Grand Opera, forced out of its home in the Wortham Theater Center by ruinous flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey, opened its season with Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ in an unlikely makeshift auditorium: Exhibit Hall A3, renamed the HGO Resilience Theater, in the George R. Brown Convention Center,” writes James Oestreich in Tuesday’s (10/24) New York Times. “The Wortham Theater Center, home to Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet … is now festooned with air-conditioning ducts to dry it out…. In the convention center … for ‘Traviata’ … the orchestra had to be shunted behind the stage, with the conductor facing away from the singers…. Eun Sun Kim, a young Korean conductor making her North American debut … led the performance with great sensitivity and flexibility as another conductor, Peter Pasztor, relayed her beat in front of the stage for crowd scenes…. The Houston Symphony … [returned] to Jones Hall…. Harvey affected offices and communications, but nothing directly related to performances. Matthew Halls conducted elegant performances of symphonies by Schubert (No. 5) and Mozart (No. 41)…. Both the Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Symphony have set up relief funds for staff members and musicians who lost homes, cars or other assets.”
Posted October 24, 2017
