Patrick Summers makes his LA Opera debut. He is artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera and principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera. His 2010/11 season began with a pair of new productions at Houston Grand Opera, Madama Butterfly and Peter Grimes. Other HGO productions he conducts this season are Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking and Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. At the Metropolitan Opera, where he is a frequent guest, he conducted Iphigénie en Tauride and Lucia di Lammermoor.