Opera Now Calls HGO “the Creative Powerhouse of American Opera”

"No matter where you live, if you love opera, you should be in Houston!" —Khori Dastoor to Opera Now

It’s one thing to be a part of a company, and to know what a special place it is. It’s another to know that across the world, people who love our art form are just as excited about the big things happening at Houston Grand Opera as we are.

The HGO team was thrilled to open the most recent edition of Opera Now, a U.K.-based magazine covering the global opera industry, and discover a fantastic piece on the company by writer George Hall: “Lone Star revolution: Houston Grand Opera: Through artistic continuity and its dedication to the next generation, Houston Grand Opera has become the creative powerhouse of American opera.”

Hall interviewed both General Director and CEO Khori Dastoor and Music Director Emeritus Patrick Summers about the company’s history of innovation, talent incubation, dedication to American opera and new works, and constant evolution alongside Houston audiences—all of which are essential to the company’s position of strength.

“In today's context we cannot merely continue to import a European art form and bring it to Houston and say, ‘Oh, isn't it so nice that we can look at these works of art and experience this music?’” Dastoor told Hall. “It has to be a vibrant, thriving, changing, organic conversation with the present, and that's what's keeping us so healthy in today's world.”

The article reflects on the company’s momentum after five years of leadership under Dastoor and 27 under Summers, highlighting Porgy and Bess, Silent Night, and the Robert Wilson Messiah from the 2025-26 season—Summers’s last as Artistic and Music Director, before the arrival of Music Director Designate James Gaffigan.

The piece traces HGO’s legacy of forward-thinking, Houston-grounded programming to the tenures of former directors Anthony Freud and David Gockley, noting that while many companies shy away from new operas, they are “another of the defining characteristics for those of us who look at Houston from afar.”

Building upon the repertoire “was in the Gockley DNA, of course, and therefore that of HGO as well,” Summers told Hall. “A big part of my brief when I came here was the shepherding of new works. I feel that the most dynamic way to honour the legacy pieces of opera's past is to have works of our own time that talk to them.”

Read the entire piece here.