“This summer’s festival will transport audiences around the world for two sensational classics which give young singers a chance to shine” says General and Artistic Director Mary Birnbaum, “and two new operas which challenge audiences’ notions of what opera means today. We’ll go on an exhilarating, romantic journey from Saratoga Springs and back again.”

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. You will leave the theater humming catchy patter songs and raucous party numbers.
With four performances at Universal Preservation Hall:
June 20, 26 & 28 at 7:30 pm and June 22 at 2:00 pm

Offenbach’s romp runs in repertory with Bock, Harnick & Masteroff’s jewel-box musical She Loves Me. Famous for tunes like “Vanilla Ice Cream”, “She Loves Me”, and “It’s Been Grand Knowing You”, this sweet story focuses on two employees in a Budapest parfumerie who are sworn enemies during the day but unsuspecting lonely hearts penpals at night. “After the success of Guys and Dolls last summer,” said Birnbaum, “it was clear to me that young singers have something important to say within the canon of musical theater, and our audiences loved that new energy was infused into these timeless pieces.”
With five performances at Universal Preservation Hall:
June 21, 25, 27 at 7:30 pm and June 28 & 29 at 2:00 pm

Earlier in the month, the company will produce a site-specific installation version of In a Grove composed by Chris Cerrone with libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann. This operatic adaptation of Akutagawa’s classic short story “In a Grove” which inspired the plot of Kurosawa’s renowned film Rashomon, offers a searing investigation into the impossibility and elusiveness of truth. The New York Times deemed the opera: “A vividly immersive thriller about the nature of truth and memory. Not a word or note is without dramaturgical purpose.”
With four performances at the Ferndell Pavilion in Saratoga Spa State Park:
May 28 at 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm, and May 29 at 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm
Rain date: May 31 at 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm

Finally, the company will present a work-in-progress showing of composer Emma O’Halloran and librettist Naomi O’Connell’s A Mass for Women in Bathrooms. This opera-theater work for three singers, an actress and electronic sound design by Alex Dowling reframes the structure of the Irish Catholic Mass to tell an intimate family story of three sisters and their mother. A story born from personal experience, A Mass for Women in Bathrooms examines themes of infertility, reproductive rights, and dementia, while reclaiming bodily autonomy for women in a historically violent space. This project is funded in part by the Arts Council of Ireland.
With two work-in-progress performances at Universal Preservation Hall:
June 22 at 7:30 pm and June 27 at 2:00 pm.

Festival special events will include family performances of songs and scenes from La Vie Parisienne and She Loves Me, Festival Artist Portrait Concerts, Opera Saratoga’s Gala, and a Great American Songbook concert at The Mansion of Saratoga. Dates for festival events will be forthcoming.