Rod Gilfry reviews

It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t only the title of the 1946 Frank Capra movie regularly placed in Christmas TV schedules to spread good cheer and a fuzzy sense of community spirit. Since December 2016 it’s also been an opera, premiered and co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera from Jake Heggie and his regular librettist Gene Scheer. One change from the film is immediately obvious: the charmingly whimsical guardian angel trying to prevent the suicide of the ordinary, good small-town citizen George Bailey has had a sex change.