Latest Stories

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  6 Best Bets This Weekend: Bluebeard, Bikes, and Going Topless at the Beach

  May 16 at 4 a.m.

  After umpteen straight days of rain, we could sure use a break, and it looks like the sun is finally peeking out from behind those clouds. Which is awesome for the hard-partying Jeep enthusiasts heading to Crystal Beach for Go Topless, the 1920s costume contest at Discovery Green, and BikeHouston's...

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  10 Best Bets This Weekend in Houston: Star Wars, Kentucky Derby and J.J. Watt

  May 3 at 4 a.m.

  We can bet on the trifecta this weekend with multiple reasons to celebrate: Cinco de Mayo, the Kentucky Derby, and Star Wars Day. Feel-good events are in the mix too with the JJ Watt Foundation Charity Classic and the BARC pet walk at Rice. Dance, comedy, a divot stomp at...

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  Madama Butterfly at Opera in the Heights Soars in Japanese and English

  April 29 at 6:27 a.m.

  Is there any opera in the rep sadder than Giacomo Puccini's achingly radiant Madama Butterfly (1904)? You could opt for his Boheme, perhaps, with its poor Parisians scrambling for rent and love, succumbing to consumption and despair. Verdi's Otello is tragic, for sure, but not ultimately sad so much as...

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  The Phoenix Isn't Quite the World Premiere We'd Hoped For But the Cascade of Voices is Exceptional

  April 27 at 7:34 a.m.

  I'm not the first opera critic to trash a world premiere – look at the beating critics gave to perennials Butterfly, Traviata, Tannhauser – so in years to come this review may be cited as staid, stupid, and close-minded. Yet I think I'm still correct in my first impression of...

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  10 Best Bets This Weekend in Houston: Cotton Fest, Cosplay and Canine Fun

  April 25 at 4 a.m.

  What's up is down during this wacky weekend in Houston with free cotton candy and wrestling at Market Square Park, a woman singing the role of Mozart in HGO's newest opera, and live music rattling the hallowed halls at MFAH. It's also a celebration of animals, from Attwater’s prairie chicken to...

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  Don Giovanni: Sex First, Then Hell

  April 21 at 7:44 a.m.

  Dark. Dark. Dark. Impossible to believe, but Houston Grand Opera, in its tetrad-production of Don Giovanni with Royal Opera House, The Israeli Opera, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, has taken all the joy out of opera's most bad-ass character, Don Giovanni, a.k.a. Don Juan. Depicted by legendary librettist Lorenzo Da...