Austin | Dallas | Houston
CultureMap Contributors
News_Joseph Campana_head shot_column mug

Joseph Campana

Arts/Entertainment

Joseph Campana is a poet, arts writer, and scholar. He is the author of a collection of poems, The Book of Faces, and has received grants from the NEA and the Houston Arts Alliance. You can find his poems, essays, and reviews of books, dance, theater, and visual arts writing in Slate, Poetry, Guernica, Dance International, Culture Vulture, Explore Dance, BigRed&Shiny, and the Kenyon Review. He teaches at Rice University. He teaches Renaissance literature and creative writing at Rice University.    

See list of all CultureMap contributors
All articles by this author.  147 Results. Showing 1 to 20
Page 1 of 8

The Review is in

Revenge trumps love in compelling Houston Grand Opera production of Il Trovatore

By Joseph Campana

04.27.13 | 5:04 pm

Is it not one of the great ironies of tragic opera that everyone should be in such good voice as disaster engulfs all? I found myself thinking this on the ...


HGO Preview

Hammer time: Love, revenge and the world's most famous anvil song make Il Trovatore special

By Joseph Campana

04.26.13 | 11:01 am

Even if you've never heard Verdi's Il Trovatore before, you've heard it before. You can experience firsthand one of Verdi's most popular works this week as ...


Talk Opera To Me

The show of the season? The allure of fatal love packs Houston Grand Opera's Tristan and Isolde with promise

By Joseph Campana

04.18.13 | 7:14 am

How do you love a myth? Passionately and to no good end, it seems, if we consider some of our favorite myths of love: Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra ...


'Tis the season

A ballet worth rioting over? Stanton Welch puts a new twist on the daunting "Rite of Spring"

By Joseph Campana

03.07.13 | 6:02 am

Spring is a time of renewal, but winter doesn’t always go quietly. As Houston Ballet prepares for its latest mixed repertory program, there’s definitely a sense of newness ...


The review is in

The thrill of bad behavior: HGO's Don Giovanni goes to the dark side but is not wicked enough

By Joseph Campana

01.26.13 | 4:18 pm

Sometimes you're so wicked you get dragged down to hell. Sometimes you're so wicked, you don't even care. Central to Mozart's Don Giovanni is the vicarious ...


Ambitious production

Sweet songs and difficult conversation: HGO's Show Boat raises powerful racial themes

By Joseph Campana

01.18.13 | 6:00 am

Sometimes you just can't help loving something. Certainly, that's true of Jerome Kern's Show Boat, which audiences have loved since its debut in 1927. With its book ...


inspirational story

The work of artist Henry Ossawa Tanner is seen in a new light at rare MFAH exhibit

By Joseph Campana

10.28.12 | 3:15 pm

Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, Nina Simone — and don’t forget Henry Ossawa Tanner. Dancer, writer, singer, and painter, all four were African-American artists who left their homes, that perhaps didn ...


The Italian Girl in Algiers

A sexy shipwreck, Turkish drag and oh, those Italian girls: Houston Grand Opera gets feisty

By Joseph Campana

10.26.12 | 6:22 am

Everyone understands the appeal of pirates — sexy, naughty, dangerous. But what's the appeal of shipwreck? If you ask The Italian Girl in Algiers, she might say, "Transformation." Houston Grand ...


Poor Mimi is back at the pawn shop

La vie boheme! Houston Grand Opera is latest to tackle classic story of economic & erotic woe

By Joseph Campana

10.18.12 | 5:44 pm

Can an opera be so good you'd perform it without its music? I was thinking about this question as I prepared for a brand-new production of Giacomo Puccini's ...


Strange Eggs

Menil's subdued Claes Oldenburg exhibit raises questions about surrealism and beauty

By Joseph Campana

09.30.12 | 1:02 pm

How strange should strange be? When walking into a gallery dedicated to surrealism, one may find this a hard question to answer. Happily Houstonians can stroll into the Menil Collection ...


Ballet preview

Anticipation: World premiere & rarely seen Tharp work highlight Houston Ballet's Women@Art

By Joseph Campana

09.19.12 | 12:08 pm

"What's the news?" is the burning question at the heart of media coverage. On the surface Houston Ballet's upcoming "Women @ Art" offers two immediate answers. The program is ...


Domestic drama in the park

The "real housewives" of Houston Shakespeare Festival mix it up in Hamlet & Comedy of Errors

By Joseph Campana

08.02.12 | 7:30 pm

What’s better than a little theater in the park? Domestic drama in the park, and no one was better at stirring up a little trouble at home than William ...


Unfurling unseen wonders

Behind the Scenes at MFAH's American Made: Historic treasures from three museums

By Joseph Campana

07.07.12 | 3:30 pm

Welcome to the doll’s house. That’s what I thought of entering the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s design studio at the start of a behind-the-scenes tour of ...


An American Debut

Kenwood House collection brings A-list portraits to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

By Joseph Campana

06.03.12 | 11:00 am

Thank goodness for home repairs. Houstonians can thank the 18-month renovation of London's Kenwood House for the parade of 48 portraits, landscapes, seascapes, and so-called "fancy paintings" for the ...


Not Favorites, Loves

Behind the art scenes: Gary Tinterow's own private MFAH is a place to save face

By Joseph Campana

05.29.12 | 1:04 pm

There's nothing Gary Tinterow loves more than a good face. So I learned behind the scenes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston when the museum's recently minted ...


Three ballets & one world premiere

Plenty of reasons to celebrate Houston Ballet's "Made in America"

By Joseph Campana

05.25.12 | 7:54 am

Twenty-five years, one mayor, three ballets, one world premiere, four chandeliers, one swinging stage light, and a lot of cupcakes. Or, another night at the ballet. At least it was ...


Virgin queen vs. queen of Scots

The real Game of Thrones: Houston Grand Opera's reign of terror continues with Mary Stuart

By Joseph Campana

04.20.12 | 10:01 am

Hell hath no fury like a sovereign scorned. Or so it would seem in the world of Gaetano Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, or Mary Stuart, which the Houston Grand Opera ...


How much can you stomach?

A burning opera: Don Carlos makes Houston Grand Opera fans confront their appetite for violence

By Joseph Campana

04.12.12 | 5:55 pm

If you're like me, there's a chance that neither the cruelty of Torquemada nor the epic proportions of Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos come to mind when you ...


A Writer's Life

Picking the perfect cover for your book: When you know you're going to be judged

By Joseph Campana

04.09.12 | 1:50 pm

I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I can’t help it. Of course, the book in question is mine. As for the cover, I ...


Fotofest 2012

Photographs merge truth and illusion in Station Museum's Artifactual Realities

By Joseph Campana

04.06.12 | 4:30 pm

Is the art in artifice the same as the art in artifact? It seems they are, at least as far as the Station Museum's latest exhibition, Artifactual Realities, is ...


All articles by this author.  147 Results. Showing 1 to 20
Page 1 of 8

Daily Digest

Houston news,
views + events

Promo Alerts

Special offers + exclusive deals

The Dining Report

The week in food news + taste

Exclusive Eats

Special offers from the best restaurants

We will not share or sell your email address

Featured CultureLists