Epic Season at Houston Grand Opera Begins with Intelligence

For the first time in its history, the company will launch its season with a world premiere, the HGO-commissioned opera Intelligence, co-created by superstar American composer Jake Heggie, librettist Gene Scheer, and director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, 2021 MacArthur Fellow and founder of Urban Bush Women, the galvanizing Brooklyn-based dance company centering the voices of Black women.
Apr 06, 2023

Pulling at heartstrings: 'Violins of Hope' live at Kohl Mansion

The world premiere of Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope, by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, forms the powerful center of the new Pentatone release . . . emotionally devastating and cathartic.
Announcing the CD release of Violins of Hope.
Jan 26, 2021

These musical instruments survived the Holocaust. Now they honor the musicians who did not.

The centerpiece of the instruments’ residency is the premiere of “Intonations,” Heggie’s song cycle, written to a libretto by Gene Scheer for mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke with violinist Daniel Hope and a string quartet drawn from the Opera Orchestra. Each song represents the voice of a different violin, telling its own story.
Jan 05, 2020

'Cold Mountain' Takes Civil War Odyssey To The Opera Stage

It's a story that could have been taken from a breaking news report: A soldier, gravely wounded in a brutal battle, flees the fighting to try and make his way home. Only this story is set during the Civil War. If that's starting to sound a little familiar, it probably should — it's the story of Cold Mountain, a best-selling novel and a star-studded 2003 movie. Now it's an opera, composed by Jennifer Higdon with a libretto by Gene Scheer. It premiered this past weekend, but its road to the stage was almost as difficult as the journey home of the main character...
Aug 05, 2015

Everest: The Cold Wrath Of Nature, Given Operatic Voice

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain and one of the most dangerous, having claimed more than 200 lives over the past century. Until last year's fatal avalanche, the deadliest year in recorded history was 1996: 15 people died, eight of them in a single blizzard. That disaster has been chronicled in at least five books, two documentaries — and now, an opera premiering in Dallas, Texas, simply called Everest.
Feb 07, 2015

OPERA NEWS — Gene Scheer in His Own Words: Michael Slade chats with one of contemporary opera's busiest and best librettists.

What makes a successful libretto? The key is its ability to immediately and continually engage the audience; to be succinct while simultaneously creating a layered story and complex characters...
Gene was interviewed by Michael Slade for a feature article in Opera News (July 2014, Vol. 79, No. 1). "What makes a successful libretto? The key is its ability to immediately and continually engage the audience; to be succinct while simultaneously creating a layered story and complex characters..."
Jul 01, 2014