Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announces that baritone Brian Mulligan, scheduled to sing the title role in Rigoletto, recently withdrew from the production due to health-related issues. Michael Mayes, making his HGO debut, will sing the first three performances of the role of Rigoletto in the upcoming production that opens the Company’s season. Scott Hendricks will sing the final two performances. Mayes and Hendricks join an outstanding cast filled with renowned HGO Studio alumni, including Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as the Duke of Mantua and Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan as Gilda.

Originally from Cut and Shoot, Texas, Mayes is renowned for his powerful voice and striking stage presence. In 2018, he stunned audiences in the UK premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking as Joseph de Rocher; a role he has performed around the world. In 2014, Mayes debuted as Rigoletto at the Boston Lyric Opera to much acclaim and personified the intense nature of the character.

"As Rigoletto, baritone Michael Mayes, also in his first BLO performance, caught the full range of the character’s jocularity as well as the dark anger and sorrowful depths of his tragic downfall. His amber toned ‘Cortigiani’ the jester’s pleading to the Duke’s courtiers, made for a pitiable and poignant moment, and Mayes’ singing in the final scene was heart-breaking.”

—Boston Classical Review

Scott Hendricks, originally from San Antonio, Texas, was last seen at HGO in 2017 as the title role in Nixon in China. Last summer, Hendricks performed the role of Rigoletto to much acclaim at the Bregenz Festival in Austria. In addition, he has performed the role for Houston audiences during the 2008-09 season.

“His forceful baritone [as Rigoletto] takes hold in solo reveries: nursing his wounds, brooding over the curse, anxious for Gilda or exploding in vengeful wrath. The more aggrieved or wrathful, the more powerfully Hendricks registers. In lovely duets with Gilda, showing his tender and protective side, he is at his most sympathetic.”

—Houston Chronicle

Director Tomer Zvulun returns to HGO after opening the 2018–19 season with his haunting production of The Flying Dutchman. Zvulun has set the drama in post-World War I, fascist Italy, offering a unique lens to investigate the relationships between men and women, classes and power, as well as ourselves and the political landscape of today.

For more information about Rigoletto, visit HGO.org.