Featuring Into the Woods, The Barber of Seville, Rusalka, and The Little Prince, the Festival’s 2027 season explores the timeless storytelling traditions that shape us.
Cooperstown, NY — International Opera Award winner The Glimmerglass Festival announces its programming for the 2027 season, with over 30 mainstage performances running from July 12 to August 22, 2027. Drawing on storytelling traditions from around the world, the Festival will present Into the Woods (Sondheim/Lapine), The Barber of Seville (Rossini/Sterbini), Rusalka (Dvořák/Kvapil), and The Little Prince (Portman/Wright), with a workshop presentation of the Festival’s 2028 youth opera commission, The Snow Queen 2.0 (Boykin/Brevoort). From Grimms’ fairy tales and commedia dell’arte traditions to Slavic folklore and modern fable, the Festival’s 52nd season explores how the stories we inherit and create invite us to imagine a different way of being.
“The stories we pass down teach us as much about ourselves as they teach the next generation,” said Artistic & General Director Rob Ainsley. “Fairy tales, folklore, and fables plumb the deepest parts of our psyche and examine our most basic human desires. Our 2027 season asks us to consider the consequences of these desires and reminds us what we owe the next generation: a healthy planet, stories that inspire empathy and courage, and the freedom to imagine a better future. At a time when the world can feel increasingly fractured and complicated, these pieces reawaken the clarity, joy, and wonder we all have in our youth.”
The 2027 Festival opens with a new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, directed by Glimmerglass Artistic Associate Eric Sean Fogel and conducted by internationally renowned musical theater veteran David Charles Abell. Audiences will remember Fogel’s “theatrically dazzling” (Bachtrack), “devilishly perfect” (Albany Times Union) 2025 take on The Rake’s Progress, which awed with its dynamic choreography and virtuosic ensemble work. A modern musical fairy tale exploring the consequences of our wishes and our responsibilities to one another, Into the Woods will be brought to life by Festival favorites, including sets by James Rotondo, costumes by Lynly Saunders, and lighting by Robert Wierzel.
Next in the lineup is the revival of director Francesca Zambello’s The Barber of Seville (Rossini/Sterbini), filled with “feisty energy” (Northeast Public Radio) and featuring a world conceived by legendary designer John Conklin. Rossini and Sterbini’s sparkling comedy celebrates wit, ingenuity, and the joyful chaos of young love. Audiences will recall this gem, first presented in 2018, for its fast-moving comedy. Remounted by director Joshua Horowitz and led by Music Director Joseph Colaneri, this whimsical production sparkles with lighting by Robert Wierzel and costumes by Lynly Saunders.
Set between land and water, fantasy and reality, the lyric fairy tale Rusalka (Dvořák/Kvapil) offers a haunting meditation on humanity’s relationship with the natural world, asking what is lost when we fail to honor nature’s beauty and mystery. Audiences will recognize the story — widely considered the greatest of all Czech operas — as a darker operatic version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Co-produced with Pacific Opera Victoria and Detroit Opera, this new production and company premiere will be conceptualized by director Brenna Corner, with sets by James Rotondo, both of whom were part of the creative “Dream Team” (Opera Today) for the Festival’s 2024 production of Pagliacci. Additional creatives include costume designer Judith Bowden and lighting designer Kate Ashton, with the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra led by Music Director Joseph Colaneri.
Portman and Wright’s timeless tale The Little Prince, based on the beloved book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, rounds out the mainstage season with a moving exploration of innocence, friendship, and the importance of seeing with the heart. Originally produced by Pacific Opera Victoria, the production is celebrated for its artistic beauty and emotional warmth, with critics calling it “an absolute delight” (Opera Canada) and “a glorious way to find the joys of opera in its most playful mood” (British Theatre Guide). In a season celebrating the power of generational storytelling, The Little Prince represents a new approach to the Festival’s longstanding commitment to engaging young people in world-class opera and musical theater. The production will bring the Glimmerglass Youth Chorus — an ensemble of 8- to 18-year-olds selected competitively from across Central New York — to the mainstage in a full-length production.
The season will also include a workshop of the Festival’s 2028 Project Pipeline commission, The Snow Queen 2.0, an imaginative new take on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale that examines the roles technology and social media play in our lives today. Composer B.E. Boykin, whose recent Minnesota Opera premiere of My Name Is Florence was hailed for its “showstopping arias” and “arresting instrumental interludes” (Minnesota Star Tribune), is joined by Deborah Brevoort, recipient of OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize and librettist for The Knock, which had its filmed premiere as part of the 2021 Glimmerglass Festival. As part of Project Pipeline, an initiative that invites audience members to engage with the creative process, the workshop will conclude with a public presentation of the work-in-progress.
The 2027 season also introduces a new performance schedule, with Thursday evening performances moving to Thursday matinees. The change reflects evolving audience preferences and growing demand for daytime performances, providing patrons with greater flexibility while creating more opportunities to enjoy opera and musical theater in the beauty of a summer afternoon in Cooperstown.
“The 2027 season reflects the continued evolution of The Glimmerglass Festival,” said Ainsley. “We are excited to continue our exploration of the great collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine after our International Opera Award for 2025’s Sunday in the Park with George, to continue our investment in local youth performers by inviting our world-class children’s chorus into our mainstage season, and to continue to introduce our audiences to works never before experienced in the Alice Busch Opera Theater, like the great Czech opera Rusalka.”
The Glimmerglass Festival’s 2027 season is sponsored by Patricia and John Chadwick, Michael Sekus and Bianca Russo, Ted Snowdon and Duffy Violante, Thomas Ragan, Thomas Simpson, Michael Young and Debra Raskin, and Destined to Glimmerglass: 50th Anniversary Campaign donors. The season runs July 12 through August 22, 2027, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York. Ticket package renewals begin July 16, 2026. New ticket packages will go on sale August 3, 2026, and single tickets will be available starting November 2, 2026. Complete casting, creative teams, and additional events and programming will be announced at a later date.
2027 MAINSTAGE PRODUCTIONS
INTO THE WOODS | July 12m, 16, 18m, 29m, 31m; August 3m, 5m, 7m, 9m, 13, 22m
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine
Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick
Conductor | David Charles Abell
Director | Eric Sean Fogel
Set Designer | James Rotondo
Costume Designer | Lynly Saunders
Lighting Designer | Robert Wierzel
“I wish…” This dazzling musical interweaves a host of iconic fairy tales in skillful and surprising ways. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood are just a few of the characters who pursue their wishes into the woods, where they learn that happy endings aren’t necessarily “ever after,” but the stories passed from one generation to the next are enduring sources of courage and consolation.
“Our vision begins in a family home that has been handed down through the generations, just as the stories are,” says Eric Sean Fogel. “Walls and ceilings break away as we step ‘into the woods’ to explore the transfer of wisdom between parent and child. The transformation goes both ways, as cracks in the walls reveal cracks in the relationships, and children and adults learn from each other as they struggle to recapture the clear vision of what is good.”
Original Broadway production by
Heidi Landesman
M. Anthony Fisher
Rocco Landesman
Frederic H. Mayerson
Rick Steiner
Jujamcyn Theaters
Originally produced by the Old Globe Theater, San Diego, CA
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE | July 13m, 17m; August 1m, 6, 10m, 12m, 14m, 16m, 19m, 21m
Music by Gioachino Rossini
Libretto by Cesare Sterbini
Conductor | Joseph Colaneri
Revival Director | Joshua Horowitz
Original Production Director | Francesca Zambello
Set Designer | John Conklin
Costume Designer | Lynly Saunders
Lighting Designer | Robert Wierzel
“I’ll play a hundred tricks before I let them have their way.” Rosina’s dazzling vocal prowess is matched by her cleverness and determination, making her one of the most modern of all prima donnas. Joined by the opera’s title character, she outsmarts her bumbling guardian and finds love on her own terms. This popular production, a collaboration between two internationally renowned opera artists who once made Glimmerglass their creative home, capitalizes on the company’s unique capacity for intimate, detailed work by an ensemble cast.
“When John and I created our production of The Barber of Seville, we wanted to center the sheer delight we felt when each of us first encountered Rossini’s sparkling score,” says Francesca Zambello. “And so our comic ensemble, based in the commedia dell’arte tradition, includes a young apprentice clown, who frames the proceedings with a sense of childlike wonder. Based on a play by Beaumarchais, the opera can be appreciated on so many levels, but at the heart of its hilarious hijinks, it is the story of the triumph of love. As the playwright said, ‘When it comes to love, too much is never enough.’”
RUSALKA | July 26m, 30; August 7, 15m, 17m, 21
Music by Antonín Dvořák
Libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil
Conductor | Joseph Colaneri
Director | Brenna Corner
Set Designer | James Rotondo
Costume Designer | Judith Bowden
Lighting Designer | Kate Ashton
What would you sacrifice for love? The water nymph Rusalka, like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, faces a terrible choice when she falls in love with a mortal. For his “lyric fairy tale,” Dvořák drew on Czech folk traditions for his lush, romantic score, which includes the soaring “Song to the Moon.”
“Rusalka is the embodiment of water; she is, in fact, that very element that exists in our world,” says Brenna Corner. “Her existence becomes threatened as her longing to join a world she barely understands — the world of a human prince — takes hold of her. Her desire for connection results in losses that she could never have foreseen. I find it to be such a resonant story for today, when human striving creates unintended consequences, often impacting the natural resources that are our greatest wealth. The story is deeply rooted in the ideas and themes of ecological responsibility, and as we dive into the design process, we are exploring sustainability at every level — both the story we tell and the materials and approaches we will use to tell it.”
THE LITTLE PRINCE | July 27m, 31; August 2m, 8m, 14, 20
Music by Rachel Portman
Libretto by Nicholas Wright
Director | Brenna Corner
Set Designer | James Rotondo
Costume Designer | Judith Bowden
Lighting Designer | Kate Ashton
“Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is rather tedious for children to have to explain things to them time and again.” A sophisticated meditation on love and loss disguised as a whimsical children’s story, The Little Prince has enchanted readers of every age and is one of the best-selling books of all time, translated into 600+ languages. Building on the success of Glimmerglass’s decade-long youth opera initiative, the production now brings our beloved Glimmerglass Youth Chorus fully into the mainstage season, with professional singers, local youth, and orchestra coming together to perform a luminous score that captivates opera aficionados and newcomers alike.
“Rachel Portman’s extraordinary setting of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s beloved story takes audiences young and old on an epic adventure, reminding us what is truly important,” says Brenna Corner. “I am always so encouraged by lines in the Act II finale: On the fate of that one rose, much greater things depend. This is something no grown-up can ever comprehend. No matter our age, there are other ways to see the world and other ways that we ourselves HAVE seen our world.”
Presented under the license from G. Schirmer, Inc. o/b/o St. Rose Music Publishing, copyright owners.
Additional concerts, artist conversations, and special events will round out a summer season rich in story, song, and community. All dates are subject to change. Complete casting, creative teams, concerts, and additional programs for the 2027 Festival will be announced in the coming months.