Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory Announces 2025 Season
Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory, the resident opera company and conservatory of Chautauqua Institution, announced today its 2025 season.
Chautauqua Opera Company
For its 2025 season, Chautauqua Opera continues its 95-year history of producing opera at Chautauqua Institution while also strengthening its commitment to developing new opera. Alongside a production of Puccini’s La bohème in Chautauqua’s Amphitheater, the company will conduct workshops of three new operas. Ranging from chamber operas to large-scale pieces, these workshops will feature Chautauqua Opera Company’s 16 Young Artists collaborating with celebrated composers and librettists. Chautauqua audiences will have the exclusive opportunity to experience these new operas in their developmental stages.
The first two weeks of the 2025 season are dedicated to an orchestral workshop of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Lincoln in the Bardo, based on George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel, and commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. The workshop will involve 85 musicians, marshalling the combined forces of the Chautauqua Opera Company, Opera Conservatory and Symphony Orchestra, and featuring the internationally renowned soprano Christine Goerke. A public presentation of 60 minutes of the opera, followed by a conversation with the creators will take place in Norton Hall. While in rehearsals and production for La bohème, Chautauqua Opera Company will also workshop two chamber operas: Ida by Lamplight, a new work by Jeremy Gill and Jerre Dye, and Sitcom, a neo-baroque comic opera by Luke Styles and Alan McKendrick. Both will receive public presentations with piano and harpsichord accompaniment to close the season. La bohème and all three workshops will be conducted by general and artistic director Steven Osgood.
“The 2025 season represents a bold synthesis of old and new repertoire for Chautauqua Opera Company as we chart the future for our storied and historic company,” stated Osgood. “Bringing Puccini’s beloved La bohème to the Amphitheater is something I have dreamt of for years, and I am excited how Keturah Stickann’s adventurous approach allows our 16 Young Artists and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra tell this achingly beautiful story. I am exceedingly grateful for our partnership with the Chautauqua Opera Guild, whose continuing philanthropy is helping sustain opera production at Chautauqua. 2025 is also the first full summer of our New Opera Workshops, and it brings Chautauqua into conversation and collaboration with The Metropolitan Opera and Opera Philadelphia. I cannot wait to share Lincoln in the Bardo, Sitcom, and Ida by Lamplight with our community. The three operas could not be more different from each other and together they invite our company, artists and audience to be trailblazing participants in the future of opera.”
LA BOHÈME
Giacomo Puccini’s lush and ravishing score returns to Chautauqua for the first time since 2003. Stage Director Keturah Stickann (La Traviata, L’Orfeo, The Mother of Us All, and Hansel and Gretel) tells this tragic tale through the eyes of an older and affluent Rodolfo, as the poet is haunted by the ghost of Mimì, and the memory of his fellow bohemians. With a full orchestra in the pit, and a strikingly reimagined chamber chorus framing the central characters on stage, this surprisingly intimate La bohème brings the grand emotions of Italian opera back to Chautauqua’s Amphitheater.
Performance Dates: Wednesday, Aug. 6 at the Amphitheater
Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Librettist: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Stage Director: Keturah Stickann
Conductor: Steven Osgood
NEW OPERA AT CHAUTAUQUA
The 2025 season marks a new and deep investment in the future of operatic repertoire and the singers whose careers will increasingly feature new works. Over the company’s six-week season, Chautauqua Opera Company will hold developmental workshops of three new operas, ranging from chamber operas to grand opera conceived to fill the world’s largest stages. The company’s 16 Young Artists will collaborate with renowned composers and librettists, giving the creators their first opportunities to see and hear their characters, stories and music come to life. Chautauqua audiences will thrill to know that they are among the first to preview these works that will move on to prestigious premiere productions in coming seasons.
LINCOLN IN THE BARDO
Workshop Presentation with Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and Chautauqua Opera Conservatory
The Metropolitan Opera has commissioned composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek to create an operatic adaptation of George Saunders’ wildly imaginative, Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Chautauqua Opera Company partners with The Metropolitan Opera for a two-week orchestral workshop, using the combined forces of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the company’s 16 Young Artists, and 18 singers from the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory to realize Mazzoli’s bold and sparkling score. Celebrated soprano Christine Goerke joins the cast to sing the role of The Reverend, which has been written specifically for her. The workshop culminates with a public reading of excerpts from the opera. This first ever presentation with orchestra will be performed on the stage of Norton Hall, and will be followed by a discussion with Mazzoli, Vavrek and Saunders.
Public Presentation Date: Friday, July 11 at Norton Hall
Composer: Missy Mazzolli
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
Based on the novel by George Saunders
Conductor: Steven Osgood
The Reverend: Christine Goerke
Featuring musicians from the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Opera Conservatory and Chautauqua Opera Company.
IDA BY LAMPLIGHT/SITCOM
Workshop Presentation Date: Friday, Aug. 8 at Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall
Price: $15
Conductor: Steven Osgood
Ida by Lamplight
Composer: Jeremy Gill
Librettist: Jerry Dye
Ida by Lamplight is the third chamber opera to be realized from Jerre Dye’s anthology libretto The Summer Place, commissioned by the Chautauqua Opera Guild, which captures Chautauqua Institution’s history from its founding through today. Jeremy Gill, Chautauqua Opera Company’s 2016 composer-in-residence, will set the 20-minute score. Ida by Lamplight invites the audience into the office of The Chautauquan, late one night in 1886. Ida Tarbell, managing editor of The Chautauquan, and Kate Kimball, an early leader of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) read and answer letters to the nascent CLSC as they survey the profound effect their work is having on thousands of readers across the United States. Commissioned by Chautauqua Opera Company to celebrate The 150th anniversary of Chautauquan Daily in 2026, Ida by Lamplight will be given a one-week workshop, capped by a public reading with piano accompaniment.
Sitcom
Composer: Luke Styles
Librettist: Alan McKendrick
The neo-baroque comic chamber opera Sitcom, with music by Luke Styles and libretto by Alan McKendrick, was developed in collaboration with Opera Philadelphia and will receive a ten-day workshop with harpsichord accompaniment at Chautauqua. As in classic television sitcoms, the opera’s four main characters are delightfully trapped in the eternal present of their own worlds. Conceived as four 30-minute “episodes,” each episode will take Max, Bettina, Joan and Vendetta on hugely transformative journeys, but crucially return each of them to their status quo for the beginning of the next episode. Chautauqua Opera will workshop 60 minutes of the score, with a public presentation to wrap up the final week of the 2025 season.
Chautauqua Opera Conservatory
The 2025 Chautauqua Opera Conservatory season, under the new leadership of Denyce Graves-Montgomery (Artistic Advisor) and Jonathan Beyer (Director) promises an exciting and diverse lineup of operatic works.
The beloved Mozart comedy Le Nozze di Figaro will bring its signature mix of wit, romance, and intrigue to Fletcher Hall, while the passionate Spanish drama La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla will transport audiences with its emotional intensity and evocative score in the Amphitheater, in collaboration with the Music School Festival Orchestra and Chautauqua School of Dance. These productions represent a perfect blend of tradition and innovation, offering a thrilling experience for the 26 singers that will make up this summer’s cohort.
“I am deeply honored to step into the role of artistic advisor for the Chautauqua Conservatory, an institution with a rich tradition of fostering creativity and artistry.” said Graves-Montgomery. “I look forward to building on its legacy, supporting the next generation of artists, and celebrating the transformative power of the arts.”
“Our upcoming season is a thrilling one indeed. Jonathan and I have heard some very exciting talents, and we greatly anticipate our inaugural season together. I’m really looking forward to getting to know the Chautauqua community as a whole and all of the many departments and disciplines and of course working with our young artists.”
“I am delighted to be working with the talented singers that will be attending Chautauqua this summer.” expressed Beyer. “Each one of these singers will bring such a unique voice to our Opera Conservatory productions and concerts. We are thrilled to present De Falla’s one-act Spanish opera La Vida Breve in the Amphitheater, in collaboration with the Music School Festival Orchestra and the School of Dance. We are honored to welcome well respected stage directors Kimille Howard, Nathan Troup, and Emma Griffin to helm the work on our stages this season.”
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Performance Date: July, 17 & 19 at Fletcher Music Hall
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Librettist: Lorenzo Da Ponte
Stage Director: Nathan Troup
It’s a wedding, and you’re invited!
A contemporary production of Le Nozze di Figaro reimagines the classic opera in a modern context, blending traditional elements with innovative staging and design and modern dress Set against a backdrop of a sleek, minimalist environment, this production will highlight themes of class struggle and gender dynamics through a contemporary lens. From Figaro and famously sharp banter to the Count’s unsettling attempts to exert power over Susanna, this production will crackle with wit while lifting up ever-relevant themes of inequality, consent and agency in relationships, and gender dynamics. And while no marriage is perfect…that of Mozart’s music and Da Ponte’s text comes exceedingly close in ways brilliant, bawdy, and bold (just as Beaumarchais intended back in 1778). This production invigorates Mozart’s masterpiece, inviting audiences to reflect on its themes within the context of our modern sensibilities. Please join us for this musically sublime tragicomedy exploring life, liberty, and the pursuit of upending the patriarchy.
LA VIDA BREVE
Performance Date: July, 28 at The Amphitheater
Music by: Manuel de Falla
Librettist: Carlos Fernández Shaw
Stage Director: Emma Griffin
Conductor: Timothy Muffitt
La Vida Breve, with music by Manuel de Falla and a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw, is considered one of the greatest operas written in Spanish. Written in 1905, it’s a kind of “tragic zarzuela”, a hothouse verismo opera that mixes Andalusian folk songs into a score shimmering with French Impressionism. This vivid and engrossing opera centers on Salud, the working-class heroine, a victim of passion and betrayal. Salud loves Paco, a sophisticated cad, who offers her pledges of love but marries another, wealthier, girl, leaving Salud desolate with heartbreak. Only one hour long, La Vida Breve is sonically thrilling, with richly sung emotion and vivacious rhythms — a gripping story of the human condition.
Please visit opera.chq.org for more information about the company and about Chautauqua Opera’s 2024 Season. Email Jill McCormick, Director of Communications, for press inquiries or questions at jillmccormick@chq.org.
Additional programming to be announced.
ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA OPERA COMPANY
Founded in 1929, Chautauqua Opera Company is North America’s fourth-oldest opera company. Beginning with the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the company is refocusing its vision toward incubating new American works as well as continuing to provide formative coaching and performance experiences for young artists. Chautauqua Opera Company offers many operatic events, including concerts with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, art song recitals, opera for young audiences, and the playful Opera Invasion series. Its productions feature internationally recognized guest artists alongside the Young Artists who make up the core of the company each season.
ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA OPERA CONSERVATORY
Chautauqua Opera Conservatory provides an intensive educational experience and the highest caliber of training for some of the most promising young singers on their way to professional careers. Under the new leadership of Artistic Advisor, Denyce Graves-Montgomery, and Director, Jonathan Beyer, the Conservatory provides vocal instruction, performance opportunities, and professional development to a cohort of 26 students selected through a competitive audition and admissions process. The Conservatory produces three operas each summer, one with the Music School Festival Orchestra in the historic Amphitheater and two smaller, more intimate operas in Fletcher Hall. Building on the legacy of the late Marlena Malas, who ran the program for 44 years, Chautauqua Opera Conservatory aims to foster the next generation of vocal talent through a curriculum that centers on committed artistic excellence and inclusion.
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