Glimmerglass Festival - History

History

Until 2011, the company operated under the name Glimmerglass Opera. The company presented its first season in the summer of 1975, when four performances of La bohème were staged in the auditorium of the Cooperstown High School. In the years since, it has grown considerably and now offers more than 40 performances of four operas, nearly always in new productions, each summer.

Operas have been performed in repertory since 1990. For the first seventeen seasons, all operas were sung in English; since 1992 they have, with some exceptions, been performed in their original language with English projected titles.

Several works have had their American or world premieres at Glimmerglass; the 1999 season featured the world premiere of Central Park, three one-act operas performed as a single work. The triptych was jointly commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, and Thirteen/WNET's Great Performances, which telecast it on PBS in January 2000. The telecast was nominated for an Emmy award.

Paul Kellogg was the General Director of Glimmerglass Opera from 1979 to 1996 and the Artistic Director from 1996 to 2006. Stewart Robertson was music director of Glimmerglass Opera from 1988 to 2006. In October 2008, Glimmerglass Opera announced the appointment of David Angus as the company's next music director, starting in the summer of 2010. Francesca Zambello became Artistic & General Director of the newly renamed Glimmerglass Festival in 2011.

The Young American Artists Program, established in 1988, brings singers in the first stages of their professional careers to study and perform at Glimmerglass. These young artists are chosen annually from hundreds of applicants from throughout the United States. In addition to rehearsing and performing, Young Artists receive musical coaching, attend classes in diction and acting, and are given instruction in such non-performing skills as audition techniques, role preparation, and the business aspects of managing a career. Administrators from many of the world's leading opera houses visit Glimmerglass throughout the summer and hear the Young Artists in performance.

In the course of the summer each Young Artist gives a solo song recital at venues in Cooperstown and nearby Cherry Valley, a feature of the Glimmerglass season that has become extremely popular with opera patrons and the local community.