The Chautauqua Opera is the resident summer opera company of the Chautauqua Institution

Chautauqua Institution

The Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit adult education center and summer resort located on 750 acres in Chautauqua, New York, 17 miles northwest of Jamestown in the western part of New York State...

. It is the oldest continuously active summer opera company in the U.S, having been founded in 1929, and it has produced several operas during the Institution's nine-week summer season every year since. Opera productions are performed in English in Norton Memorial Hall, usually on specific Monday and Friday evenings throughout the season.

Currently, the Chautauqua Opera is under the general direction of Jay Lesenger. Its 2005 season included performances of Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

's Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

, Ward's The Crucible

The Crucible

The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...

, Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

's Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....

, and Willson's The Music Man

The Music Man

The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...

.

In addition, the Chautauqua Opera runs the Young Artists Program, training highly talented young singers who plan to pursue careers in operatic music. Members of the Young Artists program present recitals on Thursday afternoons called "Artsongs at the Athenaeum Hotel", as well as two pops concerts with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra, the resident summer orchestra of the Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Founded in 1929, the ensemble plays concerts on most Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights throughout the Institution's nine-week season. The CSO...

, and two musical theatre revues during the summer season.