Houston Grand Opera (HGO) was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and Houston cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit and Edward Bing.

With a current operating budget of $20 million, the company is based in downtown Houston at the Wortham Theater Center, a 437,500-square-foot (40,650 m2) facility. Regarded as one of the world’s principal commissioners and producers of new operas, HGO has given thirty-nine world premieres and six American premieres since 1973. It has received a Tony Award, two Grammy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Grand Prix du Disque — the only opera company in the world to have won all four honors.

HGO cultivates a varied repertoire of traditional, rare, contemporary, and new opera. HGO was among the first companies in the world to use supertitles: starting in 1984, HGO adopted them for all foreign-language operas, later extending the practice to works in English as well. HGO was also the first American opera company, in 1995, to simultaneously project a live performance onto a giant screen outside the theater, dubbing the event a "Plazacast": the public was invited free of charge to Ray C.

Fish Plaza, just outside the Wortham Theater Center, to view the simulcast of a sold-out performance of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, starring Cecilia Bartoli. Houston Grand Opera’s mission is to contribute to the cultural enrichment of Houston and the nation by producing and performing opera; and by creating a diverse, innovative, and balanced program of performances, events, and community and education projects that reach the widest possible public. The HGO Board meets three times each year and is broken into three parts: an Executive Committee, a Board of Governors, and a Board of Trustees.

Anthony Freud became HGO's third general director and the company’s first CEO in March 2006. He was general director of Welsh National Opera from 1994 to 2005. At HGO, he heads an executive management team that includes music director Patrick Summers and executive director Ann Owens.

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