J. R. Helton appears at Brazos Bookstore on Friday to discuss and sign his latest novel, Drugs. When it comes to making art about drugs, there is one crucial factor that divides the truly great works from the rest, and that is honesty. Over-sensationalize, and you risk the unintentional hilarity of Reefer Madness or worse, glorifying the lifestyle. Understate the situation, and you wander into Stupor-land. Simple, stark, sincerity elevated William S. Burroughs's Junkie to a classic, and Helton hopes the same will do the trick with Drugs. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's tragic, but Helton's wry, homegrown prose never fails to resonate.

J.R. Helton discusses and signs Drugs at 7 p.m. at Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet. For information, visit the store's Web site or call 713-523-0701.

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Photo by Felix Sanchez

Divas and queens: Katie Van Kooten as Queen Elizabeth 1, and Joyce DiDonato as Mary Stuart.

For more on the Houston Grand Opera production of Mary Stuart, read our interviews with Joyce DiDonato, Katie Van Kooten and Eric Cutler.

The setup:

There's an old Italian operatic term, one that probably originated at Milan's Teatro alla Scala (or La Scala, for operaphiles), called "prima donna assoluta." It denotes the female singer without equal, the first among firsts, the absolute best that opera delivers. It's rarely used seriously anymore, but after seeing Houston Grand Opera's production of Gaetano Donizetti's Maria Stuarda (1835) -- HGO calls it Mary Stuart, but sings it in Italian -- I propose that the moniker should be brought back into usage and bestowed upon mezzo Joyce DiDonato.

There is no one like her on the opera stage today. She is a star, a superstar, in fact, and has all the finest qualities that overworked term brings to mind: a radiant and attractive stage presence whose heat can be felt by an audience; an effortless light that illuminates her character; and, the prima quality for any singer, a flawless technique and lush vocal tone that flies through whatever roulades, filigree and stratospheric heights the composer asks. She is a phenomenon, and, even better, a local girl, graduating from HGO's Studio Artist program in 1998. She has now sung at NYC's Metropolitan, Milan's La Scala, Berlin's Deutsche Oper, and London's Royal Opera, among many other houses, and has just won a 2012 Grammy for Best Classical Vocalist for Diva, Divo.

In other words, she has arrived. Like the publicists said about Garbo: DiDonato's back and Houston's got her! Young and on the ascendant cusp of her career, she is the future of opera. We can put all worries about that fat old art form, growing useless and eating chocolates on the divan, on the back burner for the present. With her gracing the stage, opera's in excellent shape.

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Photo by Daniel Kleiter

Eric Cutler sings the Earl of Leicester once again.

The biggest difference between Houston Grand Opera and many other companies is that Houston doesn't rely on one outstanding singer to carry a production, says tenor Eric Cutler, here to sing the Earl of Leicester part in the Donizetti opera Mary Stuart.

"The main thing is, with all of these Donizetti operas in what people call the time of bel canto singing, is to come with the expectation of hearing just remarkable singers. They are really vehicles for these singers. Houston continues to put together casts that are just phenomenal. They get the best singers they possibly can for this repertoire. People in Houston should appreciate that because it's not always like that in other cities They'll get a big star but don't put together a remarkable cast.

"From the great diva, Joyce DiDonato, to Cecil, the smallest part, you'll hear some of the greatest singers in the world. It's such a joy to be part of. "

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Photo by Felix Sanchez

Elisabeth (Tamara Wilson) and Don Carlos (Brandon Jovanovich)

The setup:

In HGO 's new production of Giuseppe Verdi's "grand opera" masterpiece, Don Carlos (1867), was commissioned for Paris's Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra, which liked its Second Empire productions big and long. It's the magnificent singing and conducting that can be called grand. The rest of this co-production, borrowed from Welsh National Opera and Canadian Opera, is cramped and unimpressive. There's nothing grand about it. Fortunately, Verdi's exquisitely expressive and powerful music, so wondrously realized by ideal casting and the sure guiding hand of maestro Patrick Summers, soars magnificently above such impoverished design.

The execution:

Balanchine's famous quip when his audience confronted a ballet they didn't particularly like, "Just close your eyes and listen to the music," doesn't work here because director John Caird, a Tony winner for Broadway classics Les Misérables and Nicholas Nickleby, supplies some clever action to illuminate the personal and political themes that intermix in the story. The best ensemble acting on any Houston stage right now is to be found at HGO. For that, Caird is responsible. But he's also responsible for the overall non-period look (although you probably wouldn't be far off if you guess Spanish Civil War) and the questionable ending, which Verdi never wanted like this.

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Joyce DiDonato having a great year.

Joyce DiDonato will sing the title role in Maria Stuarda, Gaetano Donizetti's opera about the battle of wills between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. DiDonato is coming back to Houston after an amazing year in which she won a Grammy for Diva Divo and performed at the Grammys, the first classical singer to do so.

"It was one of the greatest days of my life.  Grammy.com actually asked me to write about it, and maybe this will help capture what the day was like! HARD to describe!!!" she wrote in an e-mail to Art Attack in between rehearsals for the performance, which starts later this month.

In the 2004/2005 season, DiDonato made her debut with the Grand Théâtre de Genève as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda. (Soprano Katie Van Kooten will sing the Elisabetta role in the HGO production.) Asked how she compares the two roles, the mezzo soprano says: "What I LOVE about this piece is that under different circumstances, it's quite plausible that these two Queens could have been the best of friends. There was not another person on the planet who could understand what it was like to be a Tudor Queen in this man's world of intrigue, plotting, politicking, etc.  I think IF they could have truly had a meeting (under different circumstances, obviously), they could have actually connected and aided each other through very trying times.  However, this never happened. They were each too much of a threat to the other.  Seeing this confrontation from both sides is one of the most fascinating artistic journeys I have taken."

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Photo by Sussie Ahlburg

Katie Van Kooten likes power.

Katie Van Kooten says she usually plays "the whimpering, dying person no one loves." So she jumped at the chance to portray Queen Elizabeth I -- "someone who has power and destiny" -- in Houston Grand Opera's upcoming production of Maria Stuarda with music by Gaetano Donizetti.

American soprano Van Kooten (last seen in Houston as Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes) says she really likes the character of Elisabetta (whom, according to legend, the Scots still don't recognize, calling the present-day Queen Elizabeth the first, not the second) even though she calls for the execution of her cousin Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart).

"Too often the easy way out is to portray her as the villain," Van Kooten said. "She felt so strongly her commitment to the people of England and peace in the nation. In this production it's not clear who's the good girl, who's the bad girl. It makes you think instead of telling you what to think."

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Photo by Peter Dressel

Brandon Jovanovich makes his role debut as Don Carlos in the HGO production.

Six-foot, three-inch Brandon Jovanovich had a football scholarship at the University of Mary and was set on being a linebacker. Problem was, UM is located in Bismarck, North Dakota, and even though Jovanovich, who grew up in Montana, was no stranger to cold weather, this was just too tough.

"It was 80 below with windchill for three days. It was just so horrible," he recalls. So he opted out and decided to move to a different climate. "I thought of Arizona, warmth." What he didn't realize was that Northern Arizona U, located in Flagstaff, is in a ski town up in the mountains. As it turns out, it all worked out.

Northern Arizona wouldn't give him a football scholarship. But it did give him a music one (he'd grown up singing with his mom and in choirs). And he thrived on it. Eventually he moved to New York City and opera.

The winner of the 2007 Richard Tucker Award will be singing the title role in Houston Grand Opera's upcoming performances of Don Carlos, playing the princely son who sees the woman he loves instead marry his father, Prince Philippe II. And after he rejects the professed love of Princess Eboli (sung by Christine Goerke), she gets her revenge by tattling on him to the king, which ultimately results in the Spanish Inquisition being brought in.

"Don Carlos is such a fantastic acting role," Jovanovich says. "He's this tragic figure that has been shunned by his father. And he has this burning love for Elisabeth; it's such a heartbreaking story that he's got to hear about her every day and she ends up marrying his father. And there's so much depth to the character from his heartache, from the love in the first scene and then his heart is just broken and how ultimately it breaks him."

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Photo by Arielle Doneson

Christine Goerke likes playing bad women.

Opera soprano Christine Goerke had never even thought about taking on Eboli, the princess in Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos. "This role is most often sung by mezzo sopranos. I had never considered it for that reason and I'd never really given it a good look."

But when Houston Grand Opera Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers called and offered it to her -- and she initially resisted -- he asked if she'd looked at the score and noted, "It's really written the same way as all the German dramatic parts," Goerke says.

"It gets down into the middle, which basically means it either needs a mezzo with a very strong top or a soprano with a very strong middle. So I went and got ahold of the score and I just fell in love with it; the music is amazing; the story is amazing."

So that's why Goerke, last seen in Houston in the light comic opera Ariadne auf Naxos, will be pouring out her heart and dishing out vengeance in the upcoming HGO production of a piece written in French -- it was commissioned for the great Paris Exposition of 1867 by the Paris Opera -- by the renowned Italian director.

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Photo by Sergio Garcia Rill

Jenni Bank, her own force of nature, soars through this opera.

The set-up:

Giuseppe Verdi's monumental and monumentally exciting opera (1853, composed immediately after Rigoletto and before La Traviata) roars into Opera in the Heights and flattens everything else around. It leaves one breathless.

The execution:

The gypsy camp is swarming with excitement (the famous "Anvil Chorus"), but earth mother Azucena (mezzo Jenni Bank) sits apart from the swaggering merriment. She is deep in thought and stares intensely into the void. A streak of white parts her hair like Elsa Lancaster in Bride of Frankenstein. She is elemental and not one to be messed with. The lights go all spooky, lighting her from below, and she's off into one of opera's most famous arias, "Stride la vampa" ("The flames are crackling!") as she remembers her mother burned at the stake. Full of horror yet profoundly moving, her aria plumbs the agility and lungs of any mezzo, as Azucena's frightening vision turns to implacable vengeance, imploring her son Manrico, the "troubadour" of the title (tenor Lázaro Calderón) to avenge the tortured death of her mother years earlier.

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Photo courtesy HGO

Farnoosh Moshiri

The setup:

Commissioned by HGOco, the community outreach arm of Houston Grand Opera formed to get new, diverse audiences into the seats, The Bricklayer tackles the ghastly, repressive Islamic Republic of Iran. The world premiere at Wortham Theater Center, HGO's impressive No. 46, composed by on-the-rise Gregory Spears and written by Iranian exile and Houston transplant Farnoosh Moshiri, and based upon her short story about her family's American displacement, modestly succeeds in spite of itself.

Righteous moral outrage, even when deserved and prayed for as it is against Iran's current regime, is not enough to build an opera on. If you want inspiration, ask Verdi, the most political of all opera composers. He gives us drama, tension, confrontation, swirled throughout with plenty of family conflict, placed in a political context that, however remote from his own 19th-century world -- ancient Egypt, Renaissance Venice, the debauched court of Mantua -- mirrors the contemporary and smacks us awake.

The execution:

The one-act Bricklayer takes us away from the drama and puts us at a safe distance from the horror. The brevity of the opera doesn't help, for none of its characters are deeply defined, which leaves them far more rootless than they already are. Naturally, we sympathize with their plight, but we have to take a whole lot of motivation on faith.

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