ABOUT THIS CONCERT
For his first concerts as Music Director, Juraj Valčuha shares a towering masterpiece from Italian opera master Giuseppe Verdi. Traversing a sweeping emotional arc from fiery anguish and grief to radiant joy and ultimate peace, a live performance of Verdi’s Requiem is moving and cathartic, captivating and euphoric, poignant and profound (in short, everything that makes live music so special). Prepare for a concert experience to be remembered for years to come as orchestra, chorus, and stellar vocal soloists fill the stage at Jones Hall.
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Before the concert: Learn more about the program.
Those interested in attending the Opening Night Concert + Gala, use this link for information on purchasing tables or tickets. For underwriting opportunities or further questions, please contact Stacey Swift, Director, Special Events via email or 713.337.8523.
There is no intermission for this performance.
RUN TIME: 1 hour, 30 minutes
PRICE RANGE: $29 – $124
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Conductor Juraj Valčuha is recognized for his effortless expressiveness and depth of musicianship. With sharp baton technique and natural stage presence, the impressive ease of his interpretations translate even the most complex scores into immersive experiences. His profound understanding of composer and score, taste, and naturally elegant style make him one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation.
Since 2016 Valčuha has been Music Director of the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples and First Guest Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI from 2009 to 2016.
The 2005–06 season marked the start of his international career with exciting concerts on the podium of the Orchestre National de France followed by remarkable debuts in the U.K. with the Philharmonia London, in Germany with the Munich Philharmonic, and in the United States with the Pittsburgh Symphony. His Italian debut took place at Teatro Comunale in Bologna with a sensational production of La Bohème.
He has since led the Berlin Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, hr Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia London, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, Montréal Symphony, and NHK and Yomiuri orchestras in Tokyo. His active career in the U.S. has taken him to the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Utah. He enjoys regular collaborations with orchestras in Houston, Minnesota, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.
International touring with the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI took them to the Musikverein in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Berlin, as well as Cologne, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Basel, and Munich, and to the Enesco Festival in Bucharest, and to Abu Dhabi Classics. He has also toured with the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin to Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.
Valčuha champions the compositions of living composers and aims to program contemporary pieces in most of his concerts. He has conducted world premieres including Christopher Rouses´s Supplica with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Steven Mackey’s violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz and the BBC Symphony in Manchester, and Nico Muhly´s Bright Idea with the Houston Symphony. In 2005 he conducted, in the presence of the composer, Steve Reich´s Four Sections at the Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava. Other composers he has supported and continues to follow with interest are Bryce Dessner, Andrew Norman, Luca Francesconi, James MacMillan, and Steven Stucky, among others.
On the opera stage, he has conducted Madama Butterfly, Elisir d‘amore, and Marriage of Figaro at the Bavarian State Opera Munich; Elektra and Turandot at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Faust and The Love for three oranges in Florence; Jenufa, Peter Grimes, Salome, Tristan und Isolde, and Ariadne auf Naxos in Bologna; Peter Grimes in Venice; and Elektra, Carmen, Bluebeard’s Castle, Die Walküre, The Girl of the Golden West, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Katja Kabanova, and Pique Dame in Napoli.
Juraj Valčuha was awarded the Premio Abbiati 2018 from Italian Music critics in the category Best Conductor.
His engagements in the 2022–23 season will take him to the Houston, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco Orchestras, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell´Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and the Orchestre National de France. He will conduct Verdi´s Don Carlo at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and La Boheme and Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera Munich.
Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, he studied composition and conducting in his birth place, then at the Conservatory in St Petersburg (with Ilya Musin), and, finally, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de la Musique in Paris.
Grammy Award winner Ana María Martínez is considered to be one of the foremost sopranos of her time. In addition to an international career that spans the world’s most important opera houses and concert halls, she continues to explore her role as a leader in the industry and as an advocate and educator to the next generation of musicians. To that end, in 2019, she joined Houston Grand Opera as its first artistic advisor. Following a two-year appointment as artist-in-residence at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, in July 2021, she became a professor in the school’s voice department.
A winner of the 15th Annual OPERA NEWS Awards, Ana María’s repertoire encompasses opera’s most intriguing and diverse leading ladies, and she engages audiences season after season with signature roles, spellbinding debuts, and myriad captivating recordings. In addition to starring roles on the opera stage, she engages in such diverse opportunities as voicing the role of opera singer Alessandra in season three of Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle, to performing in tribute to operatic legend Justino Díaz at the 44th Annual Kennedy Center Honors (CBS), to proudly representing her birthplace of Puerto Rico as an honoree and performer in the 62nd Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. She is honored to have been a 2021 recipient of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Hispanic Heritage Award in the Arts, and to be named one of Houston’s 50 Most Influential Women of 2020-2021 by Houston Woman Magazine.
On stage, Ana Maria is known for her stunning portrayals of the title roles of Rusalka, Carmen, and Florencia in Florencia en el Amazonas, as well as Mimi in La bohème, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Solea in El Gato Montes, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Nedda in Pagliacci, Liù in Turandot, Marguerite in Faust, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Desdemona in Otello, and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra. These roles have taken her to leading opera houses throughout North and South America and Europe.
Russian mezzo-soprano, Marina Prudenskaya, studied singing at the conservatory in her native St. Petersburg. Following her studies, she was engaged by the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow. She has since been a member of the ensemble at the Staatstheater Nuremberg, Staatsoper Stuttgart, as well as the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Since 2013, she has been an ensemble member of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin. In addition to several other awards, she won the German ARD music competition in 2003.
Guest performances led her to great houses and festivals worldwide, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg, Teatro Real de Madrid, Staatsoper Hamburg, Opéra de Paris, Washington National Opera, Vienna State Opera, Grand-Théâtre de Genève, and Opera Zurich, as well as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Easter Festival, and the Bayreuther Festspiele, where she took on the roles of Fricka in Die Walküre and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung.
She has collaborated with conductors Daniel Barenboim, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Hartmut Haenchen, Simone Young, Sebastian Weigle, Fabio Luisi, Daniel Harding, and Christian Thielemann.
Marina`s repertoire ranges from the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles of Wagner and Strauss to Verdi´s Requiem and his leading mezzo-soprano roles: Amneris, Eboli, and Lady Macbeth.
In the 2021-22 season, Marina performed as Kundry in Parsifal at Deutsche Oper Berlin under Axel Kober, Oper Leipzig with Ulf Schirmer, and Opéra de Paris with Gustavo Dudamel at the conductor`s stand. Further guest performances took her to the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera and the Leipzig Opera.
Upcoming engagements in the current and next season include, among others, Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Prague State Opera; Venus in Tannhäuser at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin; Fricka in the new Ring at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; and concert engagements under the batons of Marek Janowski, Hartmut Haenchen, Alain Altinoglu, and Daniel Barenboim.
This season, Jonathan Tetelman makes several exciting house and role debuts. He first returns to the role of Alfredo in La traviata with San Francisco Opera, reprises Cavaradossi in Tosca with Deutsche Opera Berlin and Houston Grand Opera, makes his role and Wiener Staatsoper debut as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana, and his Salzburg Festival and role debut as Macbeth. He returns to Semperoper Dresden for Rodolfo in La bohéme, reprises his acclaimed performances of Paolo in Francesca da Rimini with Deutsche Oper Berlin, and sings Loris Ipanow in Fedora with Ópera Las Palmas. In concert, he returns to Verdi’s Requiem in debuts with the Houston Symphony and Orchestre de Paris, and joins soprano Angela Gheorghiu in Brussels and Paris.
Last season, Jonathan sang Stiffelio with Opéra national du Rhin, Jacopo Foscari alongside Placido Domingo in I due Foscari with Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Loris Ipanow in Fedora with Oper Frankfurt, Cavaradossi in Tosca with Theater an der Wien, and starred as Rodolfo in an operatic film of La bohéme in a coproduction with Radiotelevisione italiana and Opera di Roma.
Jonathan recently made his Royal Opera House at Covent Garden debut as Alfredo in La traviata and Rodolfo in La bohème; sang Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca with Teatro Regio Torino, Semperoper Dresden, and Gran Teatre del Liceu; made his role debut as B.F. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with Opéra national de Montpellier; sang the title role of Werther with Gran Teatro Nacional de Lima and Opera del Teatro Solis; Rodolfo in La bohème with Komische Oper Berlin, English National Opera, and Fujian Grand Theatre in China; and Duca in Rigoletto with Berkshire Opera Festival.
On the concert stage, Jonathan has sung, among others, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, joined soprano Kristine Opolais in a gala performance in Moscow, and performed with the Copenhagen Philharmonic for a Verdi Gala.
Jonathan completed graduate performance studies at The New School of Music, Mannes College, and earned his undergraduate degree from Manhattan School of Music. Born in Castro, Chile, he grew up in central New Jersey.
Dmitry Belosselskiy is one of the most exciting basses of his generation. He has taken the operatic world by storm and is celebrated by audiences and critics alike.
These concerts of Verdi’s Requiem with the Houston Symphony are the start of Dmitry’s 2022-23 season and will be followed with the role of Phillippe II in Don Carlo at the Chicago Lyric Opera. He will start the new year at Teatro alla Scala in Milan with performances of I Vespri Siciliani, after which he will return to Wiener Staatsoper for Wozzeck and to the Metropolitan Opera New York for Der fliegende Hollaender, Aida and Don Giovanni. He will spend his summer at the Wagnerfestspiele Bayreuth.
Dmitry has established a remarkable career and has performed at the world’s finest opera houses and concert venues, including Metropolitan Opera New York, Teatro alla Scala, Salzburger Festspiele, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris, Chorégies d’Orange, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Wagnerfestspiele in Bayreuth, Opernhaus Zurich, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Theater an der Wien, Washington National Opera, Canadian Opera Company Toronto, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, and Bayerische Staatsoper Munich. He has also appeared with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as on the stages of Avery Fisher Hall, New York; Harris Theater, Chicago; John Hancock Hall, Boston; Philharmonie Luxembourg; Wiener Konzerthaus; Gewandhausorchester Leipzig; Macau International Music Festival; Seoul Arts Center; Palm Beach Opera; and Bregenzer Festspiele.
The Houston Symphony Chorus is one of Houston’s oldest and most distinguished musical organizations.
Over the years, the Chorus has sung with dozens of the world’s most notable conductors, including Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Steven Reineke, Michael Krajewski, Robert Shaw, André Previn, Leopold Stokowski, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir John Barbirolli, Ferenc Fricsay, Lawrence Foster, and Hans Graf, to name only a very few.
In addition to performances in Jones Hall, the Symphony’s home venue, the Chorus has also delighted audiences in various concert halls throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico.
Recent reactions to its performances include:
Classical/Chorus: “…beautifully balanced, modulated sound that seamlessly blended with the orchestra.”
—Review of A German Requiem, Houston Chronicle, May 8, 2018
Classical/Chorus: “… the chorus was magnificent.”
—Review of Stabat Mater, Houston Chronicle, September 27, 2018
The Chorus consists entirely of volunteer singers who have considerable musical skill, vocal talent, and choral experience. They audition for placement each year. The Chorus performance schedule is possibly the busiest in the country, consisting of up to fourteen different sets of repertoire for a total of 45 concerts.
