Today is Don’t Go to Work Unless it’s Fun Day, and though we canโt in good conscience encourage you to play hooky, we can encourage you to have fun after work. Perhaps at one of the events that has made this weekโs list of best bets. Keep reading for a couple of rarely heard operas, a world premiere play, a popular jukebox musical, and more.
An Italian woman named Isabella must outsmart an Algerian bey to save the man she loves and herself in Gioachino Rossiniโs comedy opera Lโitaliana in Algeri, which Opera in the Heights will open on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. at Lambert Hall. Stage director Ben Robinson, who is also the general director of co-producer Anchorage Opera, recently told the Houston Press that the updated show, with a libretto by Angelo Anelli, will be set in the modern day and is a โreal madcap comedyโ and โalmost like a bedroom farce in a way. The characters that come in each scene always ratchet up the tension of the comedy.โ Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through April 12. Tickets are available here for $26 to $85.
Strangers in a post-apocalyptic world find refuge in a grocery store in playwright Lisa D’Amourโs Frozen Section, which The Catastrophic Theatre commissioned and will open at the MATCH on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. Eventually, someone wants to leave โ and thereโs a coyote. D’Amour told the Houston Press, โYou feel like this is a group of people who are cosplaying grocery store in order to hang on to some sense that things can be normal. That we can have a routine. That we don’t have to be afraid of what’s coming next.โ Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and April 14, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through April 19. Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a suggested price of $35 and can be purchased here.
Broadway star Mandy Gonzalez released her debut album Fearless in 2017, with a title track written by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Gonzalez originated the role of Nina Rosario in Mirandaโs In the Heights, and you can hear โFearlessโ as well as music from shows like In the Heights, Wicked, and Hamilton, at Jones Hall on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. when Gonzalez visits the Houston Symphony for Showstoppers! Celebrating Iconic Women of Broadway. The concert, led by Conductor Steven Reineke, will be performed again on Saturday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 6, at 2 p.m. Tickets to any of the in-hall performances can be purchased here for $40 to $110. Saturday nightโs show will also be livestreamed, and access to the stream can be purchased here for $20.
William Grant Still, commonly referred to as the โDean of African American Composers,โ premiered his one-hour-long opera Highway 1, USA in 1963, though it โwasnโt mounted by a major opera company until June 2021.โ But on Saturday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m., you can see the not-oft-performed work when The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and Houston Ebony Opera Guild present I too sing, America: American Stories. The opera, set at a filling station, finds the ungrateful younger brother of the filling stationโs owner, Bob, trying to take advantage of Bob and his wife Mary, which escalates quickly to attempted murder. Following Highway 1, USA, a second act will be presented comprised of spirituals and other works by different African American composers. Tickets to the performance can be purchased here for $10 to $87.50.
Catholic priest and composer Gregorio Allegriโs composed Miserere mei, Deus, based on Psalm 51, while singing in the Sistine Chapel choir and, as such, it was never to be published or shared outside the chapel. Then, quite famously, a 14-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart came along, heard it, and transcribed it from memory. At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, at South Main Baptist Church, the Houston Chamber Choir will present Miserere mei, Deus during its first spring concert, From Darkness to Light. The concert will feature special guest Loop38, a local new music ensemble, on a program that also includes Estonian composer Arvo Pรคrtโs 1989 choral setting of Psalm 51, American spirituals and ฤriks Eลกenvaldsโs arrangement of โAmazing Grace.โ Tickets to the performance can be purchased here for $10 to $45.
Lars von Trierโs 1996 film Breaking the Waves has been described as a โraw, crazy tour-de-forceโ that dares โto fuse true love with lurid exploitation and pure religious faith.โ The film, โa fierce, wrenchingly passionate film about the struggles of a shy young woman who is goodness personified,โ will be screened on Sunday, April 6, at 2 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in advance of Houston Grand Operaโs upcoming production of an opera of the same name. Houston Grand Operaโs Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers and the Executive Director of Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP), Randee Ramsey, will introduce the film, which is intended for mature audiences only. Tickets to the screening can be purchased here for $7 to $9, and you can find more information about the opera, which opens April 19, here.
Musical theater stans and Abba aficionados rejoice, because the North American tour of jukebox musical Mamma Mia is coming to town courtesy of Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center on Tuesday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. The musical, which premiered in 1999, was developed Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, two of the four members of the Swedish quartet, and features more than 20 of the groupโs songs. The book by Catherine Johnson tells the story of a young woman who invites three men who might be her father to her wedding on a Mediterranean island. Performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday through April 13. A few tickets are still available here for $130 to $225 (not including resale tickets).
Possibly the hottest ticket in town this coming week is to see Wickedโs Cynthia Erivo with the Houston Symphony at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, at Jones Hall. Erivo turned in a โshowstopper of a performanceโ in the film as Elphaba, with The New York Times calling โthe character and the actressโ the movieโs โstrongest draws.โ On Tuesday, the Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winner (not to mention three-time Oscar nominee) will perform songs from great female artists like Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Tina Turner, and more backed by the Symphony under Conductor Steven Reineke. Wednesday nightโs performance is already sold out, but if youโre quick you can still nab one of the few remaining tickets to Tuesday nightโs show, which can be purchased here for $268 to $500.
