Brown Theater (Wortham Center)

The Wortham Theater Center opened in downtown Houston on May 9, 1987, financed entirely by private donations of more than 66 million dollars and delivered ahead of schedule and under budget. Designed by Eugene Aubry of Morris Architects, it was the first major opera house built in the United States in over a quarter century. Its larger hall, the Brown Theater, seats 2,405 and is named for donors Alice and George Brown. Houston Grand Opera opened its first season there in October 1987 with Verdi's Aida, starring Plácido Domingo and Mirella Freni, and shares the stage with Houston Ballet.

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey pushed twelve feet of water into the basement and caused roughly 100 million dollars in damage. The house went dark for thirteen months and reopened in September 2018. Die Zauberflöte returns regularly: Houston Grand Opera presented Barrie Kosky's animation-driven staging in 2022 and brings Barbe and Doucet's version, set in a whimsical nineteenth-century hotel, to the Brown Theater in 2027.

On stage here

Performance dates

Data: open sources (opera houses, ticketing platforms, Wikidata). Part of the worldwide Die Zauberflöte map.