THEATRE + COMEDY

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) launches its 56th season with Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

“Madame Butterfly is all at once extraordinarily popular and heartbreaking,” explained HGO’s General Director and CEO Anthony Freud. “We present it here with a new production in the hopes of bringing it to life in a way that is as thought-provoking and stimulating as these great masterpieces deserve.”

Puccini’s tragic love story runs in the Wortham Theater Center’s Brown Auditorium from October 22 – November 05, 2010. Madame Butterfly was last performed by HGO in 2004 and returns to the Wortham Theater Center in a new production by the 2010 Tony Award-winning team of director Michael Grandage, set/costume designer Christopher Oram, and lighting designer Neil Austin. No strangers to the stage awards circuit, the production team has won multiple entertainment awards in the fifteen years of their working relationship.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announced today that, due to popular demand, an additional performance of its new production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly has been scheduled for Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 7:30 pm in the Wortham Theater Center’s Brown Auditorium.

Highlights of their career include Tony Awards for Red (2010), Laurence Olivier Awards for Guys and Dolls (2006) and Grand Hotel (2005), the 2010 Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Director and Outstanding Lighting (Red, 2010) and the Tony Award nomination for Frost/Nixon (2009). The celebrated team has just made their U.K. operatic debut at the Glyndebourne Festival with a critically-acclaimed production of Britten’s Billy Budd, and will revive their celebrated West End production of Evita on Broadway in spring 2012. The new HGO production marks the London-based design team’s first opera for a U.S. company.

“As a production team we have worked almost exclusively in the theater,” noted Grandage who described his production of Madame Butterfly as taking its inspiration from traditional Japanese art, and set in a fascinating and interesting period of history. “I’m excited to work with Houston Grand Opera on such an important and beautiful piece of the operatic repertory.”

About the opera:
Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is set to a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after David Belasco’s play Madame Butterfly, itself based on John Luther Long’s short story, which in turn was based partly on Pierre Loti’s tale Madame Chrysanthème. The opera had its premiere at Theatro alla Scalla on February 17, 1904. The occasion was a fiasco, and there was only one performance. A revised version was received very favorably in May 1904 at Brescia. The opera had its London debut at Covent Garden in 1905, and its American debut in Washington in 1906 (performed in English). It was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 1907 (in Italian).

Madame Butterfly is one of the most popular and best loved operas ever composed, and is the most frequently performed opera in the United States. Puccini wrote some of his most highly charged, emotional music for this story about a beautiful young geisha called Cio-Cio-San, seduced and abandoned by Pinkerton, an American naval officer.

Soprano Ana María Martínez, who according to Opera Magazine “requires ranking among the top lyric sopranos of the day,” makes a major role debut as Cio-Cio-San, the central character in Madame Butterfly. The Grammy Award–winning soprano was last heard at HGO as Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (2008). “Season after season, I am most excited about major artists choosing Houston Grand Opera to make major role debuts,” explains Freud. “Ana María Martínez returning to HGO to make her role debut as Butterfly will make for an exciting, thrilling and moving evening of theater.” An alumna of HGO Studio, Ana María Martínez has also performed in thirteen HGO productions including Donna Elivra in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2006), Mimi in Puccini’s La Boheme (2008) and most recently as Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (2008).

Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja makes his HGO debut as Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton. Other HGO debuts include American mezzo-soprano Lucy Schaufer as Suzuki, Butterfly’s loyal and loving servant, and American baritone Levi Hernandez as the American consul Sharpless. Tenor Rodell Rosel (Squeak in Britten’s Billy Budd, HGO 2008) returns to sing the role of Goro, the marriage broker. HGO music director Patrick Summers, beginning his thirteenth season at HGO, will lead the HGO orchestra.

Following the October 22 performance of Madame Butterfly the company will host its annual black tie Opening Night Dinner Celebration at the Wortham Theater Center on Ray C. Fish Plaza. Guests will be immersed in the world of Madame Butterfly with décor by The Events Company, culinary creations by Tony’s Catering and elixirs by Pommery and The Tasting Room. This year’s opening night celebration, chaired by Margaret Alkek Williams and underwritten by Donna and Robert Bruni, will honor Franci and Jim Crane.

Madame Butterfly opens on Friday, October 22, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the Brown Theater at the Wortham Theater Center. All other performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. for Sunday matinees.

Madame Butterfly will be performed in Italian with English surtitles.

Additionally the company will present two student matinèes (Tuesday, November 02 and Saturday, November 06, 2010), a High School Night performance (Thursday, November 04, 2010), and a special NEXUS Initiative matinee (Sunday, November 07, 2010) featuring acclaimed soprano Cynthia Clayton (Cio-Cio-San), tenor Nathaniel Peake (Pinkerton), baritone Michael Sumuel (Sharpless), and mezzo-soprano Catherine Martin (Suzuki).

All performances of Houston Grand Opera’s production of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly are held in the Wortham Center’s Brown Theater, Texas Avenue at Smith Street, Houston, TX.

Pictured:  Ana Maria Martinez as Cio Cio San. Photo by Chuck Holloman.