Category: Live Events

Tom Philpott
Brazos Bookstore
7 p.m. Wednesday, October 25, 2017 , free
Syndicated columnist and freelance writer Tom Philpott will stop by Brazos for a reading and Q&A Wednesday night in advance of Houston Grand Opera and HGOco’s presentation of the chamber opera Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo, based on Philpott’s book, Glory Denied: The Vietnam Saga of Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held POW, in November. Philpott documented the history of Thompson, and the opera draws from it to tell the story of a man returning home to a country he barely recognizes, set of course during the society-shifting days of the Vietnam era.

VETERANS SONGBOOK PROJECT FINAL CONCERT

Saturday, November 11, 2017
2:30 p.m.
Christ Church Cathedral
Free and open to the public

HGOco’s Veterans Songbook Project (2014–17) gives voice to the stories of Houston-based men and women who have served our country and to their loved ones, sparking a community-wide conversation about conflict, courage, strength, sacrifice, and hope.

HGOco partners include Goodwill, Grace After Fire, U.S. VETS, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Carpetbag Theater Company, Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts, and Writers In The Schools. This concert will feature the music set to the text resulting from the storytelling and writing workshops held at these organizations, as well as additional works created from interviews and archival research of wartime efforts.

In addition, this capstone event includes spoken-word performances by veterans, created in partnership with Applied Theatre at the Alley and Max Rayneard from The Telling Project. Selected works to be featured by the following composers:

Jonathan Booker
Mark Buller
Henry Darragh
Nicholas Davies
George Heathco
Clare Glackin
Madeline Styskal
Mary Carol Warwick
Kate Wasserman
Ryan Adam Wells

MARK THOMAS AS THE YOUNGER THOMSON IN GLORY DENIED. PHOTO BY LYNN LANE

Glory Denied

A chamber opera by Tom Cipullo
Based on the oral history by Tom Philpott

November 6 and 9, 2017
7:30 p.m.
1940 Air Terminal Museum — Hangar Building
8325 Travelair Road (Off Telephone Road and Airport Boulevard)

Review
“Memorable beyond belief.” —Houston Press

Presented as a part of the Veterans Songbook Project, Glory Denied is the story of an American family during the turbulent Vietnam War era. America’s longest-held prisoner of war returns home to a country he no longer recognizes. This intimate chamber opera chronicles Colonel Jim Thompson’s suffering in the jungles of southeast Asia through to the personal struggles that followed his liberation and repatriation.

“From hope to despair, from love to hatred to forgiveness, the dramatic tension was relentless.” —Opera News

“…a powerfully realistic thriller and an unabashedly honest commentary on the America of the 1960s and ’70s.”—Fort Worth Weekly

Houston Public Radio’s Houston Matters interviewed Tom Philpott, who wrote “Glory Denied”, the oral history of Thompson’s time in captivity, on which the opera is based.

Read the New York Times book review of “Glory Denied” from August 2, 2001
The Glory And Tragedy Of a P.O.W. Scorned