Thursday, April 7, 1983/The Battalion/Page 5B
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Houston’s performing arts
bid for cultural recognition
United Press International
HOUSTON — Houston, best
known for its oil, Johnson Space
Center, Astrodome and Hous
ton Livestock Show and Rodeo,
also is pushing for recognition as
a culture center.
Two major projects are
under way.
Residents of Texas’ largest
city have raised $43 million to
ward a planned $75 million per
forming arts center to ease de
mands on opulent Jones Hall,
opened just 17 years ago but
overwhelmed by the arts explo
sion.
Although $32 million short,
leaders still hope to close the
gap, break ground on the
Wortham Theater Center this
year, and open it in 1985.
Dominique de Menil, long
time Houston resident and Jaeir
to the Schlumberger oil well ser
vice fortune, will install her
family’s important art collection
in a $ 10 million, 100,000 square-
foot museum she is building
near downtown.
Workers already have broken
ground for The Menil Museum,
with the opening set for 1984. It
will have a $20 million endow
ment to manage a 10,000-piece
collection of art and photo
graphs ranging from classical
Greek to Andy Warhol.
The nation’s fifth largest city
already is one of the few cities
with major resident professional
opera, ballet, symphony and
theater.
Houston also has a big, well-
supported Fine Arts Museum,
Contemporary Arts Museum
and smaller galleries, including
the de Menil-sponsored Rothko
Chapel, a tribute to the work of
Mark Rothko.
Most of the m a jor perform
ing organizations (there are
many active lesser groups filling
out a busy Houston arts calen
dar) are quite young. The sym
phony is 70 years old, but the
opera company is just 27 years
old and the ballet a youthful 13.
The Alley Theatre is 35 years
old.
While the symphony has
been struggling, it is making a
new bid for respect under the
artistic direction of Sergiu Com-
missiona, a Romanian-born
American whose longest associa
tion has been with the Baltimore
Symphony.
Houston Grand Opera,
under the direction of young
David Gockley, is recognized as
a major American company with
Houston currently has
only one respectable au
ditorium for the opera,
ballet and symphony to
share with each other
and with visiting
groups.
a prize-winning production of
Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”
and four opera world premieres
to its credit.
The opera’s latest project is
the world premiere in June of
Leonard Bernstein’s, “A Quiet
Place,” a followup to his 1952
opera, “Trouble in Tahiti.”
The Houston Ballet, under
the direction of Ben Stevenson,
a British-born former co
director of the National Ballet in
Washington, has attracted na
tional notice since Stevenson ar
rived in 1976.
The Alley Theatre, which
prospered under the direction
of founder Nina Vance, late di
rector Iris Siff and current dire
ctor Pat Brown, has its own sepa
rate hall, a modernistic theater
on Jesse Jones Plaza downtown.
Houston currently has only
one respectable auditorium for
the opera, ballet and symphony
to share with each other and
with visiting groups.
The three companies have to
do an incredible juggling job to
stay out of each other’s way at
Jones Hall, built for a mere $9
million in 1965-66. Moving vans
are constantly parked at the
stage door of the shared theater.
They can hardly wait for-
opening of the new two-block
theater center, which will span a
city street and feature two thea
ters, one seating 2,300 and the
other seating 1,100, plus a dozen
rehearsal halls.
The opera and ballet will
move to the new center. The
symphony will stay in Jones
Hall.
Although he is still far short
of his goal, Lyric Theater
Foundation Director Irl Mow-
ery — with typical Houston
optimism — believes the found
ation can break ground with $50
million, which would pay for the
unfurnished building.
“The $50 million is the nut, to
assure the contract. Then we
have another year to 18 months
to raise the other $25 million,”
he said.
They have hired former
Texas Gov. John Connally as
spokesperson to try to close the
funding gap. Connally, a prom
inent Houston lawyer, has been
holding luncheons and doing
radio advertisements.
He calls upon Houstonians to
help provide the amenities
Houston needs to fulfill its role
as a “great world city.”
“We must provide the ameni
ties which that position re
quires,” Connally argues.
City government has done its
part, donating the valuable two
square blocks of land adjacent to
the Alley Theatre, Jones Hall
and Houston Music Hall, the
busy but unsatisfactory backup
music hall.
Shell, Gulf and Conoco oil
companies came through with a
total of $2 million in grants.
Then some of Houston’s Found
ations— Wortham, Brown, Cul
len and Fish — together chipped
in $26.5 million.
“There are other founda
tions from which we expect to
get multimillion-dollar grants,”
Mowery said.
Mowery hopes to break
ground in the late summer or
early fall.
“I guess I really am just an
incurable optimist about this
project. I grew up in Houston.
When you grow up here, you’re
an incurable optimist. Houston
is not an ordinary city,” Mowery
said.
Why has Houston grown so
rapidly in quality and quanity of
arts activity, and why do people
like Mowery see such a great fu
ture?
Mowery, Gockley, Stevenson
and the others agree it helps to
be headquarters for major oil,
gas pipeline and insurance com
panies and a major port:
“Money is a big factor. Every
thing takes money.”
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Rm. 140 MSC 7:00 PM
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