Sir Edward Kynaston was the last of that generation of actors before a decree came that women should be able to play female roles which of course was a great advance for women but very bad news for Kynaston."Ī lot of regular opera-goers are looking forward to the return of Christine Goerke, who last year achieved so much acclaim in New York City when she sang Strauss. It's told through the life story of an actual person, Sir Edward Kynaston, who was the most renowned Shakespearean actor of the day., but he was renowned for female roles. "It's an opera about the theater of life itself and how acting is for many people how they discover who they are," Summers says. He has been associated with Houston Grand Opera for more than half its history both as a composer as an influence as a co-founder of the Houston Grand Opera Studio." "We're in a golden moment at Houston Grand Opera concerning Carlisle because there's no opera company in history that has had such a long and close association with a living composer and with a living composer of Carlisle's talent and reknown. Summers calls Floyd's world premiere "the centerpiece" of the coming season. They took an extraordinary story in which a man on his own journey gets one day to return to his life to try to redeem himself," Summers says.Īudiences will also be able to see Dvorak's fairy tale Rusalka, a new version of The Marriage of Figaro, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Puccini's Tosca, as well as world premiere's of chamber pieces O Columbia and another yet untitled one about the effects of Hurricane Ike on Galveston. But more than that, the themes of Carousel, the idea of a life that didn't get to be finished, having an opportunity to redeem itself I think that Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers finding that tale and getting to write it just as the war was ending, just as as all kinds of households in the United States were facing a future that had lives that did not get to be completed. It is the piece of musical theater that sits between opera and commercial theater most obviously. "Of all of the pieces of American musical theater, Carousel is the most profound. There's a mixture of classic (and classic in new productions) and new with another special holiday offering - this time The Little Prince - and one from musical theater - Carousel. It's a season designed to portray the journeys people take, says Houston Grand Opera Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers in describing the upcoming 2015-16 HGO offerings ranging from the Siegfried (and Summers' favorite part of Wagner's Ring Cycle) to the return of Carlisle Floyd now in his 88th year who's written a new opera Prince of Players that takes him far from his usual Americana.