The Wortham Center was damaged by Harvey, but the Houston Grand Opera found a temporary home at George R. Brown Convention Center for the first three productions of its season.
Dubbed "the HGO Resilience Theater," Exhibit Hall A3 will serve as the company's temporary stage. Just weeks ago, the space sheltered hundreds of Houstonians during Hurricane Harvey.
The Wortham Theater Center was flooded with 12 feet of water and will be closed until May, driving the company to find temporary space. The exhibit hall will accommodate roughly 1,700 seats, 700 fewer than Wortham.
The necessary switch is actually in vogue, as operas are increasingly being performed in offbeat spaces like factories, museums and bus depots, according to the New York Times. And there are some perks to performing from the convention center. No seat will be further than 100 feet from the stage, presenting a unique opportunity.
“We will use the space to defy normal operatic convention to present what I call ‘unconventional opera,’” HGO Managing Director Perryn Leech said in a statement. “This will be a jewel of a performance space, with tremendous versatility."
The company will open its season on Oct. 20 with Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the convention center, followed by Handel’s “Julius Caesar” and the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek’s “The House without a Christmas Tree.”
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