The Glimmerglass Festival’s exhilarating 50th anniversary season centers artists and creators, celebrates opera and musical theater legends, and introduces a thrilling world premiere opera based on a beloved book.

Mainstage productions will include Tosca (Puccini/Illica & Giacosa), Sunday in The Park With George (Sondheim/Sondheim & Lapine), The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky/Auden & Kallman), the World Premiere of The House on Mango Street (Bermel/Cisneros), based on the classic book. The Festival is also proud to bring former Artistic Director Francesca Zambello’s acclaimed original production of Odyssey (Moore/Rourke) to the Alice Busch Opera Theater for the first time.

Schedule

August 5, 2025

Sunday in The Park With George

1:00pm

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by James Lapine

Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine

Orchestrations by Michael Starobin

Originally Produced on Broadway by The Shubert Organization and Emanuel Azenberg

By arrangement with Playwrights Horizons, Inc. New York City which produced the original production of Sunday in The Park With George in 1983.

Inspired by Georges Seurat’s groundbreaking painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, this musical is a meditation on the artistic process, seen through the eyes of Georges Seurat in 1884 and an imagined great-grandson, also an artist, in 1984. Nominated for 10 Tony Awards and Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Sondheim’s innovative score explores pointillism in sound before opening out into one of the most glorious choral finales in the repertory.

This production of Sunday in The Park With George was licensed by Music Theatre International.

Conductor | Michael Ellis Ingram

Conductor (August 17 Performance Only) | Luke Poeppel

Director | Ethan Heard

Set Designer | John Conklin

Costume Designer | Beth Goldenberg

Lighting Designer | Amith Chandrashaker

Movement Director | Madison Hertel

Projections Designer | Greg Emetaz

Sound Designer | Joel Morain

Hair & Makeup Designer | Tom Watson

Generously Sponsored by | Ted Snowdon and Duffy Violante

Odyssey

7:30pm

Music by Ben Moore/Libretto by Kelley Rourke

Tickets: $20 | Youth (12 and younger) free

The Festival is proud to bring former Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello’s acclaimed original production of Odyssey to the Alice Busch Opera Theater for the first time. Ben Moore and Kelley Rourke’s take on Homer’s epic tale is led by two members of the Resident Artist Program who serve as “Bards” and features the Glimmerglass Youth Ensemble. The first of six youth operas (and counting) commissioned by the Festival, Odyssey has traveled to stages across the country in the years following its premiere to standing-room crowds in 2015. Packed with rollicking choruses, tender ballads, and an irresistible siren song, this one-hour opera for all ages offers an engaging, fast-paced introduction to one of the greatest epics of all time.

Original Director | Francesca Zambello

Director | Eric Sean Fogel

Set Designer | Ryan McGettingan

Costume Designer | Erik Teague

Generously Sponsored by | Jacqueline B. Mars

Youth Tickets Generously Sponsored by | Van Broughton Ramsey and Robert Nelson

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