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...
Every week, Chautauqua Opera is sharing the incredible work of our former Young Artists. Make sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date. Brennan Martinez This week we are highlighting 2024 Apprentice Artist Brennan Martinez! During her summer at Chautauqua, Brennan sang the role of Hansel in HANSEL AND GRETAL. She also covered the roles of Young Woman in LOVE, LOSS AND THE CENTURY UPON US, and Angie in PEPITO. “The Chautauqua Opera Company is full of passionate artists who want the industry to thrive. You feel this passion and creativity flowing at every rehearsal and...
Chautauqua today announced the appointment of internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves-Montgomery as Artistic Advisor and distinguished baritone Jonathan Beyer as Director of the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory. Together, they will help shape the program’s future during a pivotal time of transition and growth, building upon the 44-year legacy created by the late Marlena Malas. Graves-Montgomery will set the vision and priorities for the Opera Conservatory. Beyer will help shape and execute that vision, both through a close partnership with Graves-Montgomery in the planning phases and in overseeing the Conservatory’s day-to-day operations. Graves-Montgomery will bring her unparalleled prowess and vision to the Opera...
Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory, the resident opera company and conservatory of Chautauqua Institution, announced today its 2024 season. Chautauqua Opera Company’s 2024 season will feature two productions. Opening the season is Love and Longing by the Lake, a trio of chamber operas, including two world premieres from The Summer Place, music by Rene Orth and Kamala Sankaram, and libretto by Jerre Dye. Four performances of this triple bill will be staged down the hill from Chautauqua’s Athenaeum Hotel. Engelbert Humperdinck’s beloved Hansel and Gretel will receive one performance in the Amphitheater with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Chautauqua Opera Conservatory...
Chautauqua Institution and its opera company and conservatory, like performing arts organizations industry-wide, are navigating challenges and uncertainties as the field emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a period of deep reflection about the future of opera in America, including at Chautauqua which hosts North America’s oldest continuously operating summer opera company and 4th oldest opera company in the nation. The current model for opera at Chautauqua requires subsidy from Institution operations on an annual basis that has been controlled historically to the extent possible through repeated production modifications. As expenses continue to grow due to rising labor, housing,...
The Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory, the resident opera company and conservatory of Chautauqua Institution, today announced its 2023 Season. The Chautauqua Opera Company’s 2023 productions will feature Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and La Tragédie de Carmen — Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carriere and Marius Constant’s adaptation of Bizet’s beloved opera. Both will be conducted by Steven Osgood and staged in Norton Memorial Hall. The Opera Conservatory, led by Director Marlena Malas and Associate Director John Giampietro, will mount three productions. Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica will be staged in Chautauqua’s Amphitheater in...
CHAUTAUQUA, NY — The Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory, the resident opera company and conservatory of Chautauqua Institution, today announced the first season of its newly unified program under the leadership of General and Artistic Director Steven Osgood and Conservatory Director Marlena Malas. The company and former Chautauqua Voice Program unified in fall 2021. The Chautauqua Opera Company’s three 2022 productions will be Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca; Kamala Sankaram and Susan Yankowitz’s chamber opera Thumbprint; and The Mother of Us All, by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein. The Opera Conservatory will produce Don Giovanni by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus...
CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Opera Company today unveils program plans for the 2021 season, including two mainstage productions at the open-air Performance Pavilion on Pratt Avenue, and an enhanced commitment to new works through the celebrated Composer-in-Residence program and a new Composer Fellows program. The mainstage performances highlight the versatility of Chautauqua Opera Company through new productions of Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg and (Working Title): A Company Developed Piece. The 2021 repertoire responds to the issues of the day and the challenges of performing live in what everyone hopes will be the final months of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Planning for the 2021 season has...
Virtual Young Artist Program and nine weeks of digital operatic content to be released on Chautauqua Institution’s new online platform The Chautauqua Opera Company, following the suspension of all face-to-face programming at Chautauqua Institution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been working diligently to rebuild a socially distanced 2020 company this summer. Honoring the company’s commitment to support the artists and artisans who were to make up the physical 2020 company, Chautauqua Opera has engaged more than 40 company members who will come together virtually to create nine weeks of digital operatic content. In addition to creating digital content,...
To Our Chautauqua Opera Community— The Board of Trustees of the Chautauqua Institution met yesterday for its quarterly meeting with the primary agenda being to determine the Institution’s course of action for the 2020 Summer Assembly. Michael Hill, president of the Chautauqua Institution, has released a communication addressing the Board’s decision which includes the suspension of all in-person programming at the Institution this summer. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I write to announce that the Chautauqua Opera Company’s 2020 season will be canceled. For 90 consecutive summers, Chautauquans have gathered in Norton Hall to celebrate opera’s rich...