Intown HGO

Since its founding in 1955, Houston Grand Opera has become one of the great opera companies in the United States, and by extension, the world. It has won numerous important awards, a Tony, two Grammy awards, and three Emmys. It is the only company in the United States to have won all three.

HGO is lead by Patrick Summers, the Artistic and Music Director, and Perryn Leech, the Managing Director. It maintains its own orchestra and chorus and performs at the Wortham Theater Center in downtown Houston.

I recently sat down with Perryn Leech to discuss the 2020-2021 season that was just accounted. Perryn has an interesting background. Born in Bristol, England, he was recruited by then-HGO Managing Director Anthony Freud to become the technical and production manager of HGO in 2006. They had previously worked together at the Welsh National Opera. He became the Chief Operating Officer in 2010, and when Freud left to lead Lyric Opera in Chicago, Perryn became the Managing Director.

INTOWN – Perryn, thank you for this opportunity to discuss Houston Grand Opera. Before we get into talking about next season, perhaps we can go over some basic questions that our readers, and myself certainly included, might have regarding how HGO actually puts a season together. For openers, how far out do you plan?

LEECH – We have an outline planned for three years. Three years is pretty solid normally.

INTOWN – What is the most difficult part of putting a season together?

LEECH – We tend to have singers that we want to use and that means looking at a long time out; singers that we have relationships with, and we do plan on using singers from the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

INTOWN – I see that most of the productions each season are actually “co-productions” with other major companies. Can you explain how that actually works?

LEECH – In the last twenty five to thirty years most companies are co-producing because it makes financial sense. It is rare now not to have co-producers on projects. On Carmen, for example, we are the lead co-producer. So we built it, we were the “bank.” There were three companies that put in $300,000 each for a total production budget of $900,000. That number includes the physical properties, set costumes, wigs etc. All of that is from the lead co-producer and then a fee from the others is paid to the lead for use of the production. The contracting of singers is the absolute responsibility of each of the co-producers.

INTOWN – Let’s discuss the ranking of North American opera companies. I always considered that the size of the annual production budget realistically determined the ranking and that would be the Metropolitan in New York, the Lyric in Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and then Houston Grand Opera. Is that a fair way to look at it.?

LEECH – Unfortunately the size of the budget becomes one of the criteria by which companies are ranked by but it is not a really good way of looking at it because you could have a very large budget and do very uninteresting work. It is more important to look at the quality of past several seasons to evaluate. I would mostly agree with your rankings although there are different models, for example, Santa Fe uses a “festival model” which means a shorter summer season and I think that LA should be included in your top five.

INTOWN – How does HGO go about “balancing” a season?

LEECH – It’s about balancing a repertoire that allows there to be something for everybody. People want their “grand opera,” Italian opera, they want their more popular titles, and we want to do two or three of those each year. We have a long term commitment to do large scale German work, for example, “Salome” this year and “Parsifal” next season, as well as a commitment to do new works, for example, “Snowy Day,” and then “Breaking the Waves” so if you do that we have three popular operas or musicals, a large scale German work, and a world premiere (“Snowy Day”) so we are now at five in a seven opera season so then Patrick (Summers, HGO Music Director) then gets a little more expression in the other two selected each season to artistically make the statement. “Breaking the Waves” is not a world premiere but it is very recently written and it makes an absolutely sensational new title in the opera world, written by Missy Mazzoli, whose works have been commissioned by the Met and Opera Philadelphia and who is becoming the pre-eminent American composer of her time. It is an amazing piece and I saw it twice in Edinburgh and it really is one of the most amazing pieces you can imagine.

INTOWN – Let’s finish by talking about the recently announced 2020-2021 season.

LEECH – “Carmen” has huge dance components and we are thrilled that Isabel Leonard is making her debut as Carmen. She is one of the real rising stars of the opera world. Rob Ashford is the choreographer and his dancers have performed at the last eight or nine years or so at the Academy Awards.

“Werther” is a French opera and one of the problems is how to cast the title role and we have Arturo Chaćon-Cruz to sing it. Then we have our world premiere, “Snowy Day.” “Snowy Day” is an iconic African-American story by a very young composer (33!), Joel Thompson. The book is the most checked out book of the New York City Library.

With Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal,” Russell Thomas, who sang Radames in our “Aida” this season, is singing the title role with Christine George singing Kundry. I think that we are doing the large scale Wagner operas extraordinarily well now.

“Cinderella” (Rossini) is one very light piece to pair with the very heavy meal of Wagner so during that rep period one will experience opera at its heaviest and at its lightest. You can only this show with an absolutely amazing and magnetic star and we believe we have one in Emily D’Angelo and will be in that generation of great stars.

“Sound of Music” is very much a piece that is there to appeal to a much wider audience. With Jeanine De Bique we believe that we have the first African-American will be cast as Maria. “Breaking the Waves” is going to be making a real bang in the community – it has lots of conversations about stability, what it means sacrifice things you believe in to appease or alter your relationship with your loved one.

INTOWN – I believe that there is a religious aspect to it.

LEECH – Yes, the religion part is very interesting – in the production you don’t know whether she is talking to God or or is deeply disturbed.

INTOWN – Perryn, to wrap things up, it seems to me that your background as theater technical operations and production designer to stage manager to Managing Director of a major opera company.

LEECH – Yes, it is a different background for sure though, of course, Joe Volpi worked his way up from a bench carpenter to become General Manager of the Met. It allows me to – I know how to put shows on. Listen, eight years ago the Board gave me this responsibility and each year that passes with the whole company not going up in smoke, I think that, well, I have repaid a little bit of that faith.