Here’s an item of note for regional opera fans, posted Monday (June 14) on The New York Times‘ arts blog:
“Francesca Zambello, the new general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., has put an immediate stamp on it, changing its name to the Glimmerglass Festival and adding musical theater as a regular feature. Starting next summer the festival will also include lectures, symposiums, cabarets and concerts for the public. Such activities have already been offered on a limited scale to donors, a spokeswoman said.
“Ms. Zambello takes over on Sept. 1. Her first season, the summer of 2011, will include new productions of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Cherubini’s ‘Medea.’ The festival will also present a double bill of new works: ‘A Blizzard in Marblehead Neck’ by the composer Jeanine Tesori and the playwright Tony Kushner and commissioned by Glimmerglass, and ‘Later the Same Evening’ by John Musto and Mark Campbell, based on five Edward Hopper paintings. The musical will be Irving Berlin’s ‘Annie Get Your Gun.’ While Glimmerglass put on ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ in 2008, musicals will now become a regular feature, to be performed with a full orchestra and without amplification.
