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    The Review is In

    O Columbia dreams: Ambitious chamber opera about space shuttle accident works to engage audience

    Theodore Bale
    Sep 24, 2015 | 1:30 pm
    Megan Samarin, Purem Jo and Ben Edquist in Houston Grand Opera production of O Columbia
    The cast of O Columbia includes, from left, Megan Samarin, Pureum Jo and Ben Edquist.
    Photo by Lynn Lane

    When I returned home from the opening night performance of Houston Grand Opera’s O Columbia, a piece of paper fell out of my program. The Song of Houston Performance Questionnaire asked me to say whether or not I agreed with the statement “I felt engaged by this performance.” More specifically, did I strongly agree or strongly disagree?

     

    I could have dismissed the incident and proceeded with writing this review, but I continued reading the form. There were more questions, and I contemplated how I might reply to each one. They were intriguing. Perhaps, also they reveal something of how Houston Grand Opera views the chamber operas it has been producing for several years now as part of its Song of Houston initiative.

     

    The problem, of course, is that I couldn’t strongly agree or disagree entirely with any of the questionnaire statements.

     

    This weighty chamber opera centers on material obtained from Houston-based NASA astronauts, scientists, and engineers. It was “…originally conceived as a tribute to the astronauts who lost their lives in the tragic 2003 Columbia space shuttle accident,” as described in the program, which promised also that the opera’s final theme had become more a “…celebration of the spirit of exploration, which compels us to keep searching for answers even in the face of great loss.”

     

    Alright, that seems engaging, if not a bit difficult to accomplish within the general structure of a chamber opera.

     

     Something different

     

    The work as staged at the Revention Music Center, however, turned out to be something very different. The newly-commissioned score by composer Gregory Spears reveals his musical gifts within the first few minutes. I was certainly engaged, since he is particularly good at writing for strings. He has provided better music than many of his peers in the greater Song of Houston project.

     

    He describes his style here as blending neoclassical and post-minimal styles, and he even works in, very skillfully, some fragments from a Haydn opera. The work has a certain texture, a kind of density, that resonated beautifully in the large hall. Timothy Myers did an expert job conducting the small ensemble.

     

    It’s clear that Spears has listened to David Lang, even if his score lacks the existential punch of a work like Lang’s Child, for example. O Columbia is hardly as idiosyncratic as any opera by Nico Muhly, as well, but let’s not forget that this is a chamber work. Some of Spears’ more backward-looking music in the opera recalls Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams, which is never bad. I was quite impressed, overall, and by his prowess. I would love to hear an opera by him in which he was given free reign to write whatever he likes.

     

    Spears’ writing for voices here is not as strong, and I might have this impression due to Royce Vavrek’s clumsy libretto. The action, if one could call it that, centers on a character named Becca, a young girl in Houston who dreams of becoming an astronaut. Becca seems to spend most of the opera ruminating in her bedroom, however, surrounded by a chorus of eight adults and two other characters, Sir Walter Raleigh/Astronaut and Lady Columbia.

     

    At times, the eight adults are supposed to be her classmates. At other times, it's not quite clear who they are, exactly. Sir Walter Raleigh sings a short aria about Roanoke, and the singers shout weird phrases such as “Build a new history! Build a new country!”

     

     Noble goal

     

    It’s difficult to follow, and the singing is so muddled that viewers must look at the supertitles projected on a large white curtain behind the musicians. Later, Becca ruminates some more and seems to be confronted by Lady Columbia. It’s actually a little bit more like the Queen of the Night has stumbled into the wrong opera. Mostly, I feel that Vavrek has provided a largely unsingable text and most of it just sounds hackneyed, like a Broadway revue.

     

    There is some good vocal work here, some bad singing there, and some artistry that made me feel engaged. Ben Edquist has a clean, heroic voice that might be better suited to grand opera. Watch for him later this season in several works, including Tosca, Eugene Onegin and the lead role in Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players. Megan Samarin is an imposing Lady Columbia, with impressive intonation and a confident, stately presence. I really couldn’t understand the exact nature of her character, but I loved hearing her sing.

     

    Pureum Jo in the lead role of Becca seemed to be aiming for a vocal heaviness that betrayed her youthful character. It was as if she couldn’t hear herself, which might have been true in the strange venue (for opera, at least). She was just working too hard, and Spears and Vavrek might have thought to give her a truly stunning aria somewhere during those 70 minutes.

     

    The libretto sags as it continues, turning into a rather strange sort of propaganda for the virtues of exploration. Does anyone attending this opera need to be convinced of that? It seems to finish where it began, with a circular structure that is more than a bit old-fashioned.

     

    HGO seems to want to present small operas that make their mark not through musical means, but rather by inviting a community to sit up and take notice of its diversity, accomplishments, and adventures. It’s a noble goal, but if these operas are to have a life that extends beyond the premiere run, in other cities and other opera houses, then the material itself will have to be a bit more… engaging.

     

    ------------

     

     The final performance of O Columbia is Thursday night (September 24). Tickets are available on the Houston Grand Opera website.

     
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    news/arts

    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

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