"There was never any question of Houston's commitment to the project," said HGO development director Marcia James, who at the time served as the foundation's financial consultant. And while the plans took shape, so did the money. In 1980, the city of Houston donated a two-block tract in the shadow of the oil-industry skyscrapers. By 1976, prominent Houstonians realized that a new complex was a necessity, and the next year the Lyric Theater Foundation was set up.Īfter a $150 million proposal by architectural superstar Philip Johnson was rejected as too expensive, Morris Architects - which, with Eugene Aubry Architects in Sarasota, is also responsible for Orlando's new duPont Centre - was called in. The hall's opening in 1966 started a cultural explosion in Houston: Audiences became interested in the arts as they had never been before, and the orchestra, ballet and opera all grew rapidly. In fact, it was the crowding at Jones that set off the Wortham project. "We'd say, 'We'll give you this date if you'll give us that one.' I'm sure the symphony will be glad to have the opera and ballet out of there." "It used to be like playing Old Maid," Heumann recalled. And there will be no more battling for performance dates at Jones, where the opera, the Houston Ballet, and the Houston Symphony used to have to vie for time. The sight lines are better, the stage facilites are far superior, and the orchestra can be more easily controlled especially because of the last, singers love both of Wortham's halls. Moving to Wortham from the 3,000-seat Jones Hall two blocks away will have numerous benefits to the HGO, Heumann said. The intimate theater kept the audience in touch with every gesture. His scheme worked ebulliently, and the cast acted and sang with style and spirit. #HOUSTON GRAND OPERA SEATING MOVIE#Director Peter Mark Schifter ingeniously moved the action to a 1930s movie set, where the opera was turned into a Turkish costume-comedy being filmed. The Cullen Theater flattered a much more personal production of Mozart's Abduction From the Seraglio. When the time came to make room for the battle-scene ballet, the whole crowd was pulled straight off in a matter of seconds. The most remarkable single moment came in the Triumphal Scene, where the chorus, decked out in gleaming Egyptian finery, was seated on massive platforms. The hall has acoustical drapes that can be raised or lowered as time goes on to straighten that out, said Scott Heumann, the HGO's artistic administrator.Īnd the Brown Theater's stage facilities easily accommodated Pier Luigi Pizzi's enormous Aida production, with its columns, plateaus, sarcophagi and even a two-story-tall head for worship purposes. When everyone let fly in the Triumphal Scene, on the other hand, things got muddy. The hall's overall reverberance added a nice glow to the quieter spots, especially flattering to the strings and the chorus. #HOUSTON GRAND OPERA SEATING FULL#The players obviously didn't hold back, and their sound was dark and full - yet it didn't have that cutting edge that can easily render everyone else's work inaudible. In the Houston Grand Opera's recent production of Aida, the brasses had plenty of occasion to cut loose, especially in the father-and-daughter confrontation of the Nile scene. It works in Houston as well as in Bayreuth. Wagner's idea, Springer said, was to keep the brasses from obliterating their colleagues in the loud spots. It extends underneath the stage, with the winds and brasses seated behind and beneath the strings. And the orchestra pit - here, as well as in the Cullen Theater - is patterned after the famous one Richard Wagner designed more than a century ago for his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
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