Stage Director

Religion and capitalism collide in this sharp, jazz-infused musical satire by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, and Elisabeth Hauptmann. Banned after just two performances in 1929 Berlin, Happy End is a satire of big business and big religion set in a smoky speakeasy where gangsters do deals, and the Salvation Army saves souls. With an unforgettable score that includes “Bilbao Song,” “Mandalay Song,” and “Surabaya Johnny,” Happy End blazes with wit, grit, and dark glamour.

Happy End will be music directed by Artistic & General Director Rob Ainsley, and feature Ana Karneža, a Juilliard drama graduate who won the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya Competition in 2024. The production will be directed by Mary Birnbaum, General & Artistic Director of Opera Saratoga, in collaboration with Glimmerglass Festival Dramaturg Kelley Rourke. Happy End is presented as part of a historic new collaborative partnership between The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Saratoga, Finger Lakes Opera, and the Seagle Festival, with 11 performances touring to eight venues across New York State and Western Massachusetts, and presented in the Glimmerglass Pavilion.

Happy End

Alice Busch Opera Theater of Cooperstown 

﻿When hard-headed British phonetics professor Henry Higgins takes Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle under his wing to transform her into a lady, cultures clash and Higgins and Eliza form an unlikely bond. With timeless songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “I Could Have Danced All Night”, the Opera Saratoga version will be a love letter to theater, with 10 singing actors playing all the roles and two pianists forming the orchestra. Directed by Mary Birnbaum and choreographed by Julia Eichten, the production will be music directed by Adam Nielsen.

EPSG:4326

My Fair Lady

Universal Preservation Hall

A perennial favorite concert! Opera Saratoga partners with the Mansion of Saratoga for two performances of favorite hits by Rodgers, Hammerstein, and their friends! The Festival Artists sing hits from Carousel, Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, South Pacific, and more while the Mansion serves a delicious (included) brunch and dinner to guests seated at tables. Tickets include buffet lunch/dinner. Premium tickets include reserved seating, a beverage and a sweet treat! Cash bar available.

Something Wonderful

The Mansion of Saratoga

Step into a turning point in history — Potsdam, Germany, 1945. The war has ended, but the future hangs in the balance. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin sit across the table, navigating mistrust, determination, and fragile hope as they shape the post-war world.
Amidst the tension of delicate political negotiations, the world leaders bonded over their love of music. Finding Peace at Potsdam brings this fascinating moment to life through powerful storytelling and stirring performances of their beloved classics. Experience the music of Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Kreisler, and more, woven together with insights that reveal the surprising role Hampton Roads played in this pivotal chapter of history.
It's more than a concert — it's an unforgettable journey through music and memory, where history's struggles and triumphs resonate in every note.

Finding Peace at Potsdam

Christopher Newport University

Chrysler Hall Norfolk

Religion and capitalism collide in this sharp, jazz-infused musical comedy by Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, and Elisabeth Hauptmann. Banned after just two performances in 1929 Berlin, Happy End is a satire of big business and big religion set in a smoky speakeasy where gangsters do deals and the Salvation Army saves souls. With an unforgettable score that includes “Bilbao Song,” “Mandalay Song,” and “Surabaya Johnny,” Happy End blazes with wit, grit, and dark glamour.

Hudson Hall at the historic Hudson Opera House

Opera Saratoga, Glimmerglass Festival, Finger Lakes Opera, and Seagle Festival will form a historic New York State partnership to present Kurt Weill, Bertholt Brecht, and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s Happy End.

Offenbach, Meilhac & Halévy’s sparkling, witty, and electric La Vie Parisienne takes us to the heart of the demi-monde in 1860s Paris where two bachelors play tour guide to a Swedish Baron and Baroness. They showcase the Paris of their imagination, complete with visits to dives that they claim are fancy palaces and meetings with friends who are disguised as aristocrats. La Vie Parisienne is social critique at its most hilarious complete with catchy tunes and drinking songs! Sung in French with new English dialogue written by Tim Drucker.

La Vie Parisienne

Watch the performance on this page at the scheduled date and time. This performance won’t be available to stream afterward on demand. Should you have trouble accessing the stream via this page, please visit juilliard.live to stream this program.

Juilliard Opera Presents Britten's "The Turn of the Screw"

Inspired by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s classic story, In A Grove is a haunting meditation on the impossibility of truth and the subjectivity of memory and perception. Set in a ghost forest in the aftermath of a wildfire in the Pacific Northwest, this searing adaptation plunges the listener progressively deeper into the ever more fallible regions of the human heart, interrogating how we see, hear, remember and believe.

In A Grove

Ellen Stewart Theatre

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Opera Saratoga, and the Bergamot Quartet join forces this October to present a workshop performance of THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE by librettists Mark Steidl and Katherine Skovira and composer Robert Whalen.  THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE is a new opera for synthetic and acoustic voices written by and for people who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication. The story draws direct inspiration from the life of Mark Steidl, a gender non-binary person who uses an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device to talk with the world. 

The Other Side of Silence

Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC)

Join Lyric Opera of Chicago for Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Rigoletto, a powerfully dramatic work based on a play by Victor Hugo. The composer brings astounding intensity to the court jester Rigoletto, tragically obsessed with avenging his daughter Gilda’s dishonor. The score’s highlights are unforgettable, from Rigoletto’s hair-raising denunciation of the Duke of Mantua’s courtiers, “Cortigiani,” to the immoral, philandering Duke’s “La donna è mobile,” to Gilda’s ecstatic “Caro nome.” Conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola, a much-acclaimed Verdian, Lyric’s visually sumptuous production stars the sensational baritone Igor Golovatenko. He's joined by two other international luminaries making eagerly awaited company debuts: Mané Galoyan, the exquisite Armenian soprano, and Javier Camarena, the spectacular Mexican tenor.

Rigoletto

Lyric Opera House

Guys and Dolls

An international cast joins the NY Phil for the US Premiere of Aaron Zigman & Mark Campbell’s Émigré, a new oratorio that traces the story of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai to escape the Holocaust. Long Yu conducts this semi-staged production.

Émigré

Lincoln Center

When the goddess of Death is cast down to Earth to live as a mortal named Laila Starr, the boundaries between the divine and the human begin to blur in this vivid, transporting world premiere from Kamala Sankaram and Minita Gandhi. The Many Deaths of Laila Starr was commissioned and developed through Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative, adapted from the acclaimed graphic novel by Ram V and Filipe Andrade. Infused with elements of Konnakol, Raga, and EDM, this fantasy on purpose and impermanence unfolds with both kinetic energy and striking clarity, as a god made mortal begins to see the world—and life itself—through fresh eyes.

Stage Director

Mary Birnbaum

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 31 - Nov 8, 2026

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr · Minnesota Opera

Past events

28 - 31 Jul, 2026

Happy End · Glimmerglass Festival

20 - 28 Jun, 2026

My Fair Lady · Opera Saratoga

About

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