Let's Meet Up for a Recital at Rienzi !

This is for the HGO Studio Artists March recital at Rienzi, a program of Romantic-era German Lieder, with HGO Studio artists Morgan Pearse and D'Ana Lombard, singing songs by Schumann and Strauss, with Bradley Moore and Christopher Turbessi at the piano.

This will be a real Lieder Abend, the German art songs performed the way they were intended, in an intimate, domestic setting. You have seen the drawings of Franz Schubert and his friends singing and playing, with a group of their friends in a drawing or music room ? Same thing here. Schumann and Staruss are the early and late markers for German romanticism, so this program should be the heart of the heart of the art song repertory.

Rienzi, though, is a rather grand place. Rienzi is the Houston Museum of Fine Arts European decorative arts wing, located on Kirby Drive. Quite a place - you did not know that anyone in Houston lived this way - with some amazing stuff inside. Intimate and domestic are relative terms when you get to this level of living - there was a great deal to be said for being in the beginning of the oil business. Take a good look at the landscaping, too, and get big ideas for your garden.

If you have not been to Rienzi, just seeing the place and contents is worth the price of a ticket. It will get your motivation (and maybe envy) going. Of course, it does require some imagination to visualize a Christmas morning with children and presents being unwrapping in the room where the recital is held.

A $40.00 ticket includes valet parking and a wine (and cheese and fruit and all that) reception with the artists after the recital.

Coming to this recital requires some quick action, and not just through the Meet Up group. To buy tickets, call Houston Grand Opera at (713) 228-OPERA (6737) and order yours. A reply through this Meet Up Group - though that would be nice to do - is not enough to get you in. And tickets are limited in number - an intimate domestic setting, remember ? - and the recital is this Saturday, so decide to come along and order your tickets.

Saturday night is actuallythe second evening of song, as the same program is presented at Rienzi on Friday evening, March 13, 2015, too, with the same drill for tickets.