This week's Saturday at the Opera features a program of signature choruses from the world's best-loved operas, from Verdi’s Nabucco and Il Trovatore, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Bizet’s Carmen and more. Also included are selections from operetta, oratorio and musical theater.

OPERA: CHORUS! (various languages)

COMPOSERS: Various

CAST: The Houston Grand Opera Chorus
Sleep/Police/Sergeant Khovansky/Pangloss: Ryan McKinny, bass-baritone
Cunegonde/Jenny/Venus: Caitlin Lynch, soprano
Scribe/Candide/Samuel: Shon Sims, tenor
Kuzka: Jon Kolbet, tenor
Maximilian: Octavio Moreno, baritone
Red Man: Matthew Redden, dancer
Gondola Girl: Ashley Lee, dancer
Candide: Laurie Lester
 
MUSICAL CONTENT:
Sergei Prokofiev: "Epigraph" from War and Peace
Benjamin Britten: "Who Holds Himself Apart" from Peter Grimes
Richard Wagner: "Spinning Chorus" from The Flying Dutchman
Giuseppe Verdi: "Murderers’ Chorus" from Macbeth
Giuseppe Verdi: "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore
Henry Purcell: "Hush No More" from The Fairy Queen
Giacomo Puccini: "Humming Chorus" from Madama Butterfly
Igor Stravinsky: "With Air Commanding" from The Rake’s Progress
Kurt Weill: "Alabama Song" from Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Dmitry Shostakovich: "Police Scene" from Lady Macbeth of Mtsenska
Georges Bizet: "Cigarette Chorus" from Carmen
Arthur Sullivan: "Policeman’s Lot" from Pirates of Penzance
Jacques Offenbach: "Barcarolle" from Tales of Hoffman
Carl Orff: "O Fortuna!" from Carmina Burana
Richard Wagner: "Entry of the Guests" from Tannhäuser
Arthur Sullivan: "With Cat-like Tread" from Pirates of Penzance
Giuseppe Verdi: "Witches' Chorus" from Macbeth
George Frideric Handel: "Halleluiah Chorus" from Messiah
Richard Rodgers: "Alleluia" from The Sound of Music
Modest Mussorgsky: "Wailing Chorus" from Khovanshchina
Giuseppe Verdi: "Va pensiero" from Nabucco
Richard Rodgers: "You’ll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel
Leonard Bernstein: "Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide
arr. Robert Russell Bennett: "America the Beautiful"
 
CONDUCTOR: Patrick Summers
STAGE DIRECTOR: David Pountney                        
HOUSTON GRAND OPERA ORCHESTRA & CHORUS
CHORUS MASTER: Richard Bado

For more information about this performance, please click here.