WSD Attends Tannhauser
at Houston Grand Opera

Sunday, October 28, 2001

WSD Events

[ Home ] [ Tannhauser at Houston Grand Opera ] [ Supermen of Gotterdammerung ] [ Wagner, Liszt and Weimar ] [ Wagner and American Opera ] [ Wagner 189th Birthday Recital ]

A Trip Photo Album

Click on images for enlarged view.

Houston's Wortham Theater Center	Venus Michelle DeYoung Tannhauser Stig Andersen Wolfram von Eschenbach Guido Paevatalu Elizabeth Tina Kiberg Landgraf Hermann Stephen Milling Conductor John Fiore Director Werner Herzog Set Designer Maurizio Balo Costume Designer Franz Blumauer Houston Symphony Orchestra Houston Grand Opera Chorus
HGO Marquee
Tannhauser Curtain Calls
WSD Founder Virginia Abdo at the Opera

Pre-Curtain Luncheon at the Lancaster

On October 28, WSD members flew down as a group on Southwest Airlines to Houston from Dallas, to attend Houston Grand Opera's Sunday Matinee performance of Tannhauser. Before the opera, there was a brunch buffet at the Lancaster Hotel, just across the street from the Wortham Center. Ann Thompson, a long time friend of the Wagner Society of Dallas, was originally scheduled to present a short lecture, but she was called away on other business. Instead, she sent one of her colleagues, Reese Marshall, to take her place. He did an excellent job of filling members in on some of the details of the production, as well as explaining a bit of the background of the story of Tannhauser, and how Wagner adapted his materials to become the opera we know today.

There is an excellent review of the performance we saw by WSD member Carroll Staton.

Virginia Abdo Serves Guest Speaker Reese Marshall	Virginia Greets Members at Luncheon	WSD Vice Chairman Roger Carroll with Don Janak
Jim Wheeler, Dan Sneed, and WSD Chairman Joan Merriman	Marion Ward and friend with Carroll Staton	Sue Rekerdres and Fred Ward
Kyle Kerr, Gaston Maurin, and Marion Ward	Fred Ward and Pat Mattingly	Before the Opera: Allesandra Comini at the Box Office
Speaker Reese Marshall Discusses Wagner and Tannhauser	Gaston and Don Visit with Reese Marshall	Virginia Abdo with HGO Violinist Friend
Houston Buildings:

At Rigoletto on Saturday Night

HGO often pairs two operas back to back on one weekend. Out of town attendees can thus get two performances on one trip. Saturday night, October 27, the opera was Verdi's Rigoletto, with Robert Aronica as the Duke, Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Rigoletto, and Laura Claycomb as Gilda. Maddalena was sung by Marie Novacek, with Sparafucile by Raymond Aceto. Standout in this fine performance, lovingly conducted by Patrick Summers, was the stylish Gilda of Laura Claycomb. Sets were by Peter Yeargan and Costumes by Peter J. Hall. This was the same production that was used in Dallas last year, although with a different cast of singers.

Oh, Say Can You See!	The View from the Top	The Brown Theater Lobby
David Arata and Martin Reyes with Oklahoma Friend	Gaston Maurin and Kyle Kerr Join the Group	Rigoletto Curtain Calls

Texas Foreign Language Association Convention
at the Adams Mark Hotel

Sunday Morning before Tannhauser at HGO, WSD Founder Virginia Abdo was an invited speaker at the Texas Foreign Language Association convention in Houston. She presented a workshop for German teachers, comparing the Neibelungen Leid, a German literary classic, with Wagner's treatment of the same story in his operatic tetrology, Der Ring des Neibelungen. During her presentation, Virgina played a video of Anna Russell's humorous re-telling of the Ring story, as well as clips from Fritz Lang's 1924 silent film, Die Neibelungen, and highlights from the recent Metropolitan Opera presentation of the operas Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. These selections concentrated on the character of Siegfried, how he forged his sword, Nothung, and was eventually stabbed in the back and killed by Hagen.


A GRReat Expert addressing other GRReat Experts	...very strong, and very brave, and very handsome, and very STUPID!	And at the end, you're right back where you started from, 20 hours ago!
	WSD Webmaster Ed Flaspoehler