Chautauqua Opera Company’s 2026 Season

For its 2026 season, Chautauqua Opera Company deepens its commitment to developing new operas while bringing fully staged productions to Chautauqua Institution’s Amphitheater.   

The company’s mainstage production will be an eclectic triple-bill of operas which have a historic connection to Chautauqua: Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop, Kamala Sankaram and Jerre Dye’s A.E. Reverie, and the world premiere of Jeremy Gill and Jerre Dye’s Ida by Lamplight.  In the weeks surrounding this production,the company willconduct workshops of three new operas, ranging from chamber operas to large-scale pieces. In these workshops, Chautauqua Opera Company’s 16 Young Artists will collaborate with celebrated composers, librettists and singers, and Chautauqua audiences will have the exclusive opportunity to experience these new operas in their developmental stages.  

The first two weeks of the 2026 season are dedicated to piano vocal workshops of Mark Adamo’s Sarah in the Theatre, commissioned by Odyssey Opera, and Danika Lorèn and Royce Vavrek’s Anne of Green Gables, in partnership with Against the Grain Theatre, based on the beloved series of novels by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. The workshops will conclude with a public presentation of excerpts from each new work, followed by a conversation with the creators.  Lorèn will remain in residence throughout the remainder of the season, and a presentation of 60 minutes of music from Anne of Green Gables will be given.  The final ten days of the company’s season will be dedicated to an orchestral workshop of Herschel Garfein’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, based on the play by the late Tom Stoppard.  Excerpts from the opera will be presented on the stage of Norton Hall with members of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra on August 7, 2026.  The Music Shop, A.E. Reverie, Ida by Lamplight, and all three workshops will be conducted by general and artistic director Steven Osgood.