This season, we learn from the past to look toward and create the future of opera!

COVID-19 disrupted business as usual, bringing out the good and bad in our world and our communities. It also forced us to think out of the box, and we’ve decided not to go back to business as usual. In the arts especially, we can believe we can honor the past AND bring you more creativity, more innovation, and even more passion for the art form we know and love.

Syracuse Opera is expanding its relationships within the greater community to serve a wide and diverse audience with tradition, innovation, and the highest standards of performance quality available. New collaborations with Syracuse community entities and other opera companies are paving the way for a more sustainable model for the artform. Opera is such a complex, all-encompassing medium. It brings together a multitude of artists through a heightened creative craftsmanship. That means a ton of daunting moving parts! What makes opera so amazing is also what makes it so difficult to put together sometimes, and we know the road ahead will come with challenges. But most of all, we’re excited! Adapting to our changing world with creative, collaborative initiatives will create better opera for our audiences, artists, and community partners. In this season –Syracuse Opera’s 48th– we are presenting the range from past to future.

First, a twist on Menotti’s The Medium. Madness and The Medium is a riveting take on some of the maddest moments in opera. Join us as we dive into Menotti’s terrifying macabre tale about the human condition, the dark side of both enabling and abusing, and the relentless violence of suffering and loss. Paired with a chilling tour of infamous operatic mad scenes installed at The Red House theater complex, our audience will be guided through the ‘madness’ in an immersive production that lands just in time for Halloween.

December brings a free event with the spirit of hope and healing! Another piece by Menotti, Amahl and the Night Visitors is a beautiful little jewel, a treat for the holidays, a timeless story of generosity when a young shepherd boy and his mother encounter the Magi. No darkness here, just hope and maternal love… what we all could use right about now.

We end the season in April with an extraordinary feat of elegance, beauty, and comedy: Mozart’s masterpiece, The Marriage of Figaro, presented in grand style. A story that takes the human condition away from the supernatural, into a judgment free, suspended place in time for characters wrestling with their inner selves. It is a real, sometimes fun, sometimes sad, always touching journey of forgiveness, realization, acceptance and honesty. The realism speaks to our souls through the sheer beauty of the text and the otherworldly perfection of the music.

We are also planning many more surprises peppered throughout the season and we will announce them in good time. Join us in this year of rebirth and hope, innovation and joy!

Our opera family is growing and we can’t wait to show you what’s next!