Editorial: July 12, 2023

Glimmering Glimmerglass Glimmers Again

Last week, on the evening of Friday the 7th of July, the Glimmerglass Festival opened the doors of the Alice Busch Opera Theater for its 48th season with a provocative, moving, and beautifully sung and brilliantly acted performance of Puccini’s “La bohème.” This is the fifth Glimmerglass production of what is among the most well-known and well-loved operas in the world.

The first time “bohème” was seen in Cooperstown was in 1975. It was, in fact, the very first opera staged by the fledgling company. It was as well the only opera staged that summer, making four appearances on the mail-slot stage of the 400-seat, non-air-conditioned, orchestra-pit-less, backstage-less Cooperstown High School auditorium, surrounded by a supporting staff of enthusiastic local volunteers and accompanied by a four-page mimeographed program.

Three years earlier, Glimmerglass Opera was born, the result of the findings of a few people who decided that the serene, clear, scenic Otsego Lake, the attractive period houses in a quaint village, the pleasant, for the most part, summer climate, the host of orchestra musicians who had fled New York City and the presence of Tom Goodyear, Cooperstown’s mostly jovial, portly, Falstaffian social arbiter who loved the theater, were enough to form a dedicated base that, they hoped, might be able to coax the seemingly wild dream of opera in upstate New York into a reality. These industrious leaders also decided that “bohème” would be the perfect first stab, with its large (volunteer) chorus, especially its large (volunteer) children’s chorus.

And so, when “bohème” opened for its brief stint the audience was filled with ticket-buying parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, and family friends of the many kids in the children’s chorus, as well as the Bassett Hospital colleagues and patients who came to cheer the five doctors who were part of the adult chorus.

The principal singers and musicians were professional, so the audience got something they had not had in Cooperstown: a spectacle—live performance, drama and, of course, music. Goodyear, a proud member of Actors’ Equity but no singer, was given the role of Alcindoro. The audience went wild.

Close to 2,400 people saw that first production in the torrid heat of July. The Glimmerglass Opera Theatre, three years in the making, was launched and, after what was billed as a highly successful first season, the repertoire was expanded immediately to two productions, beginning the summer of 1976.

Today, nearly 50 years later and with some abundant name-tweaking that took the company from the Glimmerglass Opera Theatre (at times the Glimmerglass Opera Theatre Festival) to The Glimmerglass Festival, to Glimmerglass Opera, then back to The Glimmerglass Festival, the company thrives in a seven-week, four-production 2023 season of 37 professionally-staged performances enhanced by a full schedule of concerts, dinners, previews, talks, tours, a world premiere youth opera, and a dip into the Crusades.

The mission of the Glimmerglass Festival is much the same as it was at its beginning: “To produce new, little-known and familiar operas and musical theater in innovative productions; provide professional training and performance opportunities for emerging artists and interns; engage important artists who inspire the highest standards of achievement; inspire dialogue around meaningful issues of the day through song and story; collaborate with regional organizations, schools and businesses to enhance life in Central New York.”

The Glimmerglass Festival, along with its new Artistic and General Director, Rob Ainsley, are reaching exciting new heights. “Glimmerglass’s secret lies,” he writes, “in its inherent unlikelihood. That our theater should exist here…is deliciously improbable. We gather here to celebrate the most complete and perfect of art forms…in one of the most unspoiled landscapes in the country. Opera demands our every skill and resource…it captures history and makes change for the future. Opera connects us to our collective humanity, touching our souls with its transcendence and power…It is also plain fun…Escapism, entertainment, a night out….”

Go see these magical operas, and support our amazing company.