Grammy Award-Winning Mezzo-Soprano Susan Graham Returns to Her Native Texas for Role Debut as Handel’s Xerxes at Houston Grand Opera

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So far this season, Susan Graham has triumphed in Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust at Lyric Opera of Chicago, in Strauss’s Rosenkavalier at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, in Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the San Francisco Symphony, and in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas on a West Coast tour. Now the Grammy Award-winning mezzo returns to her native Texas for a climactic challenge: singing the tyrannical, flamboyant title role of Handel’s Xerxes at Houston Grand Opera, from April 30 to May 14.

A renowned Handelian, Graham enjoyed tremendous success in her 2008 performances of Handel’s Ariodante in San Francisco. The Wall Street Journal wrote of her Ariodante: “There can be few living singers who can do such spellbinding justice both to Handel’s stark emotions and his heavenly music as Susan Graham… . She was totally compelling both in romantic ecstasy and in abject dismay.” The San Francisco Chronicle joined in the praise, adding that her performance “was marked by nobility and technical bravura. Her coloratura execution was flawless, and the expressive depth of her ‘Scherza infida’ was, if anything, even more astonishing.”

For Xerxes at Houston Grand Opera, Graham will star in Nicholas Hytner’s Laurence Olivier Award-winning production – lauded during its original English National Opera run as “London’s most successful Handel staging ever” (Guardian, U.K). The Times of London called the production “a revelation.” Graham will portray the Persian “king of kings”, the love-struck Xerxes (Serse in the Italian), who opens the opera with what is probably the most famous non-religious aria in Handel’s vast output. Sometimes known as a love song to a tree, “Ombra mai fù” is the melody long referred to in instrumental arrangements as Handel’s “Largo”.

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