The Gershwins’ beloved opera to launch company’s 2025-26 season in a nine-performance run
HOUSTON—May 23, 2025—Houston Grand Opera (HGO) is now offering single tickets to all performances of the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at HGO.org. The anticipated production will open the company’s 2025-26 season on October 24 and run through November 15, 2025. It will mark 50 years since HGO first restored the American classic to its creators’ original full vision in a landmark staging that went on to Broadway, earning HGO both a Tony and a Grammy.
“HGO’s 1976 presentation of Porgy and Bess marked a watershed moment—one that helped redefine what American opera could be,” says HGO General Director and CEO Khori Dastoor. “It affirmed the power of homegrown storytelling on the operatic stage and launched a tradition of championing American works that continues to this day. Now, for the first time in more than 30 years, we are proud to bring this iconic opera back to Houston. In anticipation of strong demand, we’re planning nine incredible performances, with single tickets available starting today.”
Porgy and Bess is known for its moving score, which seamlessly blends jazz, spirituals, blues, and classical music into timeless songs like “Summertime.” Its story is set in the Jim Crow South, in the fictional Charleston slum of Catfish Row, where Porgy, a disabled beggar, and Bess, a woman struggling with addiction, fall in love. The opera will be presented in an acclaimed production created by Washington National Opera artistic director Francesca Zambello.
HGO’s production will be led by a cast of opera giants, including bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as Porgy, soprano Angel Blue as Bess, baritone Blake Denson as Crown, soprano Latonia Moore in her HGO mainstage debut as Serena, and baritone Donnie Ray Albert, who performed the role of Porgy in HGO’s 1976 production, as Lawyer Frazier. Maestro James Gaffigan, the General Music Director of Komische Oper Berlin and Music Director of the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra in Switzerland, conducts.
HGO’s full 2025-26 season is comprised of 35 mainstage, 1 Family Day, and two student performances across six productions. In addition to Porgy and Bess, it includes the company’s first-ever presentation of Puccini’s Il trittico; a revised version of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2011 opera Silent Night; Humperdinck’s enchanting Hansel and Gretel; HGO’s first-ever Messiah, composed by Handel and arranged by Mozart; and Rossini’s crowd-pleasing The Barber of Seville. Also next season, the Butler Studio will present Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men in two performances at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater.
Single tickets for all Porgy and Bess performances—on October 24 and 26, and November 1, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15—are available now. Tickets to HGO’s Family Day production of Hansel and Gretel (February 14) will be available starting July 15, with single tickets to all mainstage performances of the 2025-26 season, as well as Of Mice and Men, released on August 6.
HGO is featuring a variety of ticket offerings for 2025-26, from flexible three-opera packages to the full six-opera season. Full subscriptions start as low as $100. Subscriptions and packages are now available at HGO.org.
As part of HGO’s mission to invite all Houstonians to experience the operatic art form, the company continues to serve audiences through its popular Opening Nights for Young Professionals (ONYP) discounted subscription series; tickets starting at $25 for all productions; discounted single tickets for veterans and active military members, available for 10% off all season; and $25 student tickets to mainstage productions, accessible one month prior to the opening of every performance with a valid student ID.
PHOTOS: Photos of Porgy and Bess that can be used with this announcement can be found here. Please credit Karli Cadel.