Patrick Summers is Music Director of the Houston Grand Opera (HGO), and also appears in major opera houses worldwide. Mr. Summers is best known for his formidable grasp of extensive and diverse repertoire, ranging from period performances of the baroque, through bel canto and grand opera of the late romantic period to contemporary American works.
In this 2008/2009 season, Mr. Summers begins his second decade as HGO Music Director, in which he will conduct productions of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream, Verdi's Rigoletto, and a new opera concept entitled Chorus!, encompassing scenes from great choral operas staged and conceived by opera director David Pountney, and in April 2009, the world premiere of Andre Previn's second opera, Brief Encounter.
Elsewhere this season, Mr. Summers returned to the Metropolitan Opera for Puccini's Madama Butterfly with Patricia Racette, and as a frequent guest to the MET, participated in the MET's 125th Anniversary Gala (opening night) conducting the final scene from Capriccio featuring Renée Fleming. Following the Gala, he was asked at late notice to conduct his first Salome, which featured Karita Mattila, which he did to great acclaim.
He returns for the third time in February 2009 to conduct the Finals Concert of the MET National Council Competition. In addition, Mr. Summer returns to the San Francisco Opera, with whom he has had a two decade association, to lead the SF Opera production of Three Decembers by Jake Heggie (formerly entitled Last Acts) which premiered at the HGO in the 07/08 season, and conducts the Gala concert of the "Adler Fellows", SF Opera studio program. Rounding out the 08/09 season, he will lead the world premiere of The Letter, by Paul Moravec, starring Patricia Racette, in July/August 2009 at the Santa Fe Opera.
In the symphonic world during the current season, Mr. Summers conducts the Orchestra of St. Luke's Christmas concert with Deborah Voigt at New York's Carnegie Hall, and returns in May 2009 to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to conduct the NAC Orchestra in a concert featuring a new NAC commission by R. Murray Schafer, with soloist Angela Hewitt.
In Europe, most recently Mr. Summers made his Spain debut, leading Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Teatro Liceu Barcelona, starring Juan Diego Florez and Joyce DiDonato, and previously made his United Kingdom debut conducting the Welsh National Opera's Rigoletto. Elsewhere he led the European première of Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men at the Bregenz Festival, with the Vienna Symphony.
Mr. Summers's appointment as Music Director of the HGO was announced even prior to making his company conducting debut in April 1998 (Verdi's La Traviata). He formally became the HGO Music Director the following season 1998-1999 and since then, has led more than 30 HGO productions, among them several world premieres including Tod Machover's Resurrection in 1999 (CD - Albany, 2002), Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree in 2000, Jake Heggie's The End of the Affair (CD - Albany 2005), and Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, and last season, two world premieres: The Refuge, an oratorio by Christopher Theofanidis, for orchestra, chorus and soloists and Jake Heggie's newest chamber opera, Last Acts, with libretto by Gene Scheer, based on the play by Terrance McNally.
Though not a globe-trotting conductor, Mr. Summers is well known amongst performing artists, especially for his sensitivity, ability and expertise in collaborating closely with living composers in bringing their works to life. To date, he has worked on the world premieres of several operas and symphonic works. He first assisted Andre Previn a decade ago in the San Francisco Opera creation of A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the Tennessee Williams play, in which he also shared conducting duties. He later led Streetcar's European premiere for the Opéra-National-du-Rhin (Strasbourg). He has since worked closely with such composers as Tod Machover, Jake Heggie, Rachel Portman, Michael Daugherty, Carlisle Floyd, Andre Previn, Mark Adamo, Daniel Catan, Murray Schaefer, Lee Hoiby and Christopher Theofanidis to name a few.
From Patricia Racette's first Cio Cio San, at the HGO, to recent MET performances of Ana Netrebko's first Puritani, Mr. Summers is particularly renowned for his work with the finest singers of today, who, due to his deep musical insight, have frequently sought him out to conduct their premiere productions in signature roles. In a decade at the Houston Grand Opera as music director, Mr. Summers has presided over the expansion and growth of the HGO Orchestra, and has continued to attract leading international opera stars to come to the company. Some highlights include Renée Fleming's first Violetta (La Traviata - 2003), and unforgettable L'Elisir d'Amore (2000) with Ramón Vargas and Ana Maria Martinez, the teaming of Sergei Leiferkus, Maria Guleghina, and Samuel Ramey in Nabucco (2000), Don Carlo with Ramon Vargas, Samuel Ramey, and Patricia Racette (2001), Rigoletto with Laura Claycomb and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (2001), and The Merry Widow (2001) pairing Susan Graham and Bo Skovhus together for the first time in this opera, which the two have since gone on to perform with many opera companies in many cities worldwide.
Formerly its Principal Guest Conductor, Mr. Summers has been closely associated with the San Francisco Opera for nearly twenty years, and has conducted a vast repertoire ranging from his own realization of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea to performances of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, to the acclaimed world premiere of Jake Heggie's and Terrence McNally's Dead Man Walking (2000), (CD: Erato - 2002). Most recently he conducted Handel's Ariodante in June 2008, and over his two decade association with the company has conducted Guillaume Tell, La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Otello (Rossini), Norma, Die Fledermaus, Tosca, Samson et Dalila, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Faust, Così fan tutte, L'Elisir d'amore, La fille du Régiment, Iphigénie en Tauride and the American premiere of Rossini's Ermione.
Mr. Summers made his Metropolitan Opera debut in December 1998 conducting Die Fledermaus and has returned to conduct the Metropolitan's Millennium Gala, Così Fan Tutte (2001), Lucia di Lammermoor with Ruth Ann Swenson (2002), Rodelinda with Renee Fleming (2006), and I Puritani with Anna Netrebko (2007), transmitted world-wide during the MET's first season of HD transmissions into cinemas, and released as a DVD (Deutsche Grammophon).
Mr. Summers' growing discography includes the 2002 Grammy Award-winning recording Bel Canto featuring soprano Renée Fleming, with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. He also led the recorded revivals of two of Houston Grand Opera's world premieres: Mark Adamo's Little Women (Ondine, 2001) and Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas (Albany, 2002). The revival of Little Women was broadcast nationally on PBS/WNET's "Great Performances."
As guest conductor in other theatres, Mr. Summers has conducted such wide-ranging works as Donizetti's Don Pasquale and La Bohème (Opera de Bordeaux), La Bohème (Seattle Opera), Lee Hoiby's The Tempest (Dallas Opera), Aribert Reimann's A Ghost Sonata (San Francisco Opera Center), and Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (Teatro San Carlos, Lisbon). Following his Opera Australia debut in 1994 with La Cenerentola, Mr. Summers has returned regularly for seven seasons to the Sydney Opera House, conducting Lucrezia Borgia, Werther, Iphigenie en Tauride (Melbourne), La Bohème, Rinaldo, Madama Butterfly, The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Pearl Fishers.
In addition to his work in opera, Mr. Summers led the 1997 European concert tour of the English Chamber Orchestra with Russian vocal stars Olga Borodina and Dmitri Hvorostovsky performing at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Royal Festival Hall, Rotterdam's de Doelen, and Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which was recorded and released on CD by Philips. Most recently, Mr. Summers made debuts with three major American Orchestras, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in concerts with soprano Renée Fleming.
A musicologist and teacher, Mr. Summers was music director of the San Francisco Opera Center from 1989 to 1994. He conducted Falstaff and The Bartered Bride for the Opera Center's Merola Opera Program-the foremost summer opera-training program in the United States-as well as six Grand Finals concerts. As conductor of the Opera Center's touring company, Western Opera Theater, Mr. Summers traveled across the United States and Canada, leading literally hundreds of performances of Madama Butterfly, Don Pasquale, La Bohème, Lucia di Lammermoor and Carmen. He led five opera tours of Asia and the Pacific, helped develop the Pacific Voices program for the San Francisco Opera Center, and conducted the first-ever Tosca produced in China. He has conducted, coached, and taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and throughout Japan.
An Indiana University graduate, he was named IU's Distinguished Alumnus in 2001, a distinction he shares with Ruth Ann Swenson, Thomas Hampson and Carol Vaness. Mr. Summers was Stolichnaya's Artist of the Year in 1998, and has twice received the Otto Guth Award from the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco.
