Shelby's Social Diary
A night of musical highs: Affordable opera tease builds party anticipation
What a musically delicious sampling it was when Opera in the Heights presented a potpourri of popular pieces from the upcoming season at its party launching the 2013/2014 repertoire. Fans gathered at Four Oaks Place for a cocktail hour followed by the presentation that served as a teaser to the coming season.
Keith Chapman emceed the program that began with Amanda Kingston singing a show-stopping aria from Lucia di Lammermoor, which opens in the spring. Julia Engel presented a preview of her role as Norina in Don Pasquale, which plays in November. The entire Opera in the Heights chorus then joined lead role singers Sara Heaton and Steven Wallace in a round of the famous brindisi (drinking song) from October’s La Traviata.
The singers, under the tutelage of artistic director Enrique Carreón-Robledo, are members of the professional company that provides a stage for emerging opera performers and brings affordable opera to the greater Houston area. Season ticket packages, including four operas, are priced from $86 to $193.
Among guests saluting Oh!, as it is affectionately known, were Ben Edquist, Allegra De Vita, Meredith Crockett, Fred Whitty, Frederick Ballentine, Teresa Procter, Eloise Bereds, William Nettles, Alvin Major Jr. and Opera in the Heights board chair Rosalie Bates.