Francesca Zambello, Glimmerglass Opera’s incoming General & Artistic Director, has announced her plans for the Central New York company.

Beginning with the 2011 season, Glimmerglass Opera will become The Glimmerglass Festival.  The company will continue its tradition of four new fully staged productions, now to include three operas and one piece of American musical theater, performed as intended with full orchestra, large cast and no sound amplification. These four productions will be supplemented by special performances, cabarets, concerts, lectures and symposiums throughout the season.

“Our new name – The Glimmerglass Festival – reflects our new breadth of activities and spirit of adventure,” Zambello said. “My goal is to have a variety of offerings, so you can come to a concert or reading in the afternoon, have a picnic, go to the opera, and then stay afterward for a cabaret.”

In 2011, The Glimmerglass Festival will present new productions of Bizet’s Carmen, Berlin’s American classic Annie, Get Your Gun and Cherubini’s rarely performed Medea. Additionally, a double bill of two new operas about American artists will feature the world-premiere production of A Blizzard in Marblehead Neck, a Glimmerglass-commissioned work by award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tony Kushner, and the professional premiere of John Musto’s and Mark Campbell’s Later the Same Evening, an opera based on five Edward Hopper paintings. 

The Festival will run July 2 through August 23, 2011. The four main stage performances will perform in rotating repertory.  Ancillary activities will include concerts, cabarets, lectures, question-and-answer events and performances by members of the Young American Artists Program, the company’s apprentice program for young singers. In August, The Glimmerglass Festival will also feature a Symposium Series, where visiting lecturers will explore topics related to the 2011 productions.

Another new feature will be The Glimmerglass Festival Artist in Residence. A major international artist will be fully integrated into the life of the Festival, with a leading role in a main stage production and special solo performances throughout the summer. The artist will work closely with members of the Young American Artists Program. Casting and production teams for the 2011 Festival will be announced in late July.

THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL 2011

Carmen (Bizet/Meilhac & Halévy, 1875)
July 2, 9, 11m, 15, 19m, 23, 25m, 31m; August 5, 8m, 11, 13m, 20, 23m

Medea (Cherubini/Hoffmann, 1797)
July 8, 10m, 23m, 28, 30m; August 1m, 6, 14m, 16m 

Annie, Get Your Gun (Berlin/Fields, 1946)
July 16, 18m, 22, 24m, 30; August 2m, 4, 6m, 9m, 12, 15m, 18, 20m, 21m

Double Bill:
world premiere: A Blizzard in Marblehead Neck (Tesori/Kushner, 2011)
professional premiere: Later the Same Evening (Musto/Campbell, 2007)
July 21, 26m, 29; August 7m, 13, 22m
m=matinee

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Francesca Zambello officially assumes the role of General & Artistic Director commencing September 1, 2010. She succeeds Michael MacLeod, who held the position for five years. The company is a professional and non-profit organization that offers approximately 45 performances of four productions that run in rotation during July and August. Since its opening in 1987, the company’s Alice Busch Opera Theater has been home to more than 85 productions. The 2010 Festival runs from July 9-August 24 and will feature four new productions: Puccini’s Tosca, Copland’s The Tender Land, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and the U.S. professionally staged premiere of Handel’s Tolomeo.  For additional information, call (607) 547-2255 or visit www.glimmerglass.org.