Biography
Patrick Summers joined the Shepherd School of Music as Distinguished Lecturer in Opera Studies in Fall 2024. Previously, he lectured in the Shepherd School’s Advanced Opera Studies and conducted operas such as Floyd’s Susannah and Handel’s Agrippina for the opening of Rice’s Brockman Hall for Opera.
Summers has been a central figure at the Houston Grand Opera for over 25 years, conducting a vast range of repertoire during his tenure. First appointed to the company in 1998 as Music Director, he then was appointed Artistic and Music Director in 2011 with the chief task of elevating the company’s artistic quality. Highlights at HGO include conducting Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, and Lohengrin; Verdi’s Requiem, Don Carlo, Rigoletto, and La traviata; Mozart’s The abduction from the Seraglio, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro; Britten’s Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and The Turn of the Screw; Handel’s Saul and Julius Caesar; Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, and Turandot, Smyth’s The Wreckers; premieres of Tarik O’Regan’s The Phoenix; André Previn’s Brief Encounter; Christopher Theofanidis’s The Refuge; Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life, The End of the Affair, and Three Decembers; Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree; Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince; Tod Machover’s Resurrection; Joel Thompson’s The Snowy Day; and the American premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger, both at HGO and the Lincoln Center Festival.
At the Metropolitan Opera, he has conducted Lucia di Lammermoor, Rodelinda, Salome, I puritani, and The Enchanted Island, among others. He has enjoyed a long association with San Francisco Opera and was honored in 2015 with the San Francisco Opera Medal, the company’s highest honor. Selected highlights with SFO include conducting A Streetcar Named Desire, Il trittico, Moby-Dick, Dead Man Walking, Sweeney Todd, and Guillaume Tell.
Around the world Maestro Summers has taken the podium for The Bregenz Festival, Gran Teatre del Liceu, The Israeli Opera, Opera Australia, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Dallas Opera; he has also guest conducted The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, LA Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Radio Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In 2017, Summers was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by his alma mater, Indiana University. At Aspen Music Festival and School, he currently serves as Co-Director of the Aspen Opera Theater and Vocal Arts alongside Renée Fleming.
Summers is also an accomplished author. His books include "The Spirit of This Place," based on his Campbell Lectures at Rice University; the novels "Key Change" and "A Collection of Brevities"; the poetry volume "The Prison of Time"; and an upcoming collection of essays on opera.
