Category: Texas

  • Did I cite Operas are Poetic? I did.

    Did I cite Operas are Poetic? I did.

    Since Houston Grand Opera’s recent premiere of Dead Man Walking, I’ve been reflecting on the wealth of great librettists in the American operatic tradition. If I were on a television game show and had only 30 seconds to mention as many as I could, my “gut reaction” list would start with Gertrude Stein (Four Saints…

  • Singin’ the Turtle Blues in Port Arthur

    If Janis Joplin hadn’t succumbed to that fatal dose of heroin in 1970, today she might have been celebrating her 68th birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot about her since a recent trip to Los Angeles, where I had the privilege of reading four letters she wrote to her family in the late 1960s and…

  • Looking Up in Texas

    “Looking up suggests hope, and hope has no significance on stage except as a function of narrative.” Choreographer Deborah Hay in Houston.