HGO announces season

Two Mozart operas — “Magic Flute” and “Abduction from the Serail” — head the list of works to be performed by the Houston Grand Opera in its 2007- 08 season that opens with Verdi’s “Masked Ball” on October 19.

Houston stages a provocative “Faust”

A literary critic once recalled the day when a German could not clear his throat “without finding pithy precedent in Goethe.”

Houston takes fresh approach to Cenerentola

In opera, Rossini, born in 1892- the year after Mozart died, is the successor of the great master
and, when performed as perceptively as in the “Cenerentola” that debuted at the Houston Grand Opera on January 27, his rightful heir.

Jaume Aragall en Vivo

During any recital by an aging divo there comes a moment of truth when he sings an operatic aria
(usually E lucevan le stelle , as the highest note is an A). That is the defining moment when he no longer can hide behind idiosyncratic interpretation, expressive breathing and a lot of clever transpositions.

Conservatory Tries to Raise Its Profile

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/arts/music/07scho.html?_r=1&ref=music&oref=slogin

PURCELL: Dido and Aeneas

This disc is a reissue of a 1993 recording made at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California, but new to me.

A Conductor with panache: JosÈ Serebrier speaks to Anne Ozorio

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2007/Jan-Jun07/serebrier.htm

PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf

I suppose you will find this quite an addition to the Melchior legacy if you are a collector of every sound Melchior ever uttered.

Madama Butterfly, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article1334253.ece

Agrippina, Coliseum, London

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b8e01d78-b5f7-11db-9eea-0000779e2340.html