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Meet the 2025 Chautauqua Opera Company Young Artists in Norton Hall! Join us and hear their voices here first!

American Apollo is a story forged at the crossroad of celebrity; class; race and power in America. Teasing at the impossibly closed page of the personal relationship between two intensely private people with good reasons to be silent: John Singer Sargent, the closeted celebrity image crafter, and public artist and the African – American Artist’s Model; Soldier & Muse Thomas McKeller. This opera tells the tale of individual courage and breathtaking vulnerability that peels the paint off venerable historical figures to reveal the beating heart & simmering desire beneath Sargent’s only uncommissioned monumental male nude. Is love blind, or does it in fact have the keenest eyes of all?

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.

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.

Join us for an afternoon of song, featuring our 2025 Young Artists.

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.