The challenge with an art form as old as opera is to keep it so fresh that audiences continue to feel the passion and drama of it all. The Pittsburgh Opera’s 2025-2026 season is a mix of both classic and contemporary programming that does just that. With works by Puccini and Verdi combined with an opera from just ten years ago, this year’s lineup is one not to miss. October will bring La Bohème (the basis for the musical RENT), three contemporary operas—Fellow Travelers, Curlew River, and Time to Act—and Verdi’s Falstaff, the composer’s final work.
Marketing and Communications Manager Chris Cox explained each show in the season’s relevance. “La Bohème has been a perennial crowd-pleaser for over 100 years. Fellow Travelers has only been around ten years, but has quickly solidified itself as a compelling, must-see show. Curlew River gives us a chance to try a new venue and is unlike any opera we’ve ever done. Time to Act, our world premiere, is literally an opera of the world we live in. Falstaff is Verdi’s final opera; we haven’t performed it since 2009, and felt it was time to bring it back.”
Pittsburgh Opera Announces Its 2025-2026 Season: A Mix of Old and New
Though La Bohème is the oldest in the 2025-2026 season, it’s a contemporarily resonant story. A group of impoverished artists try to get by while a dire illness threatens those they love, doing their best to make their art while struggling against the the demands of rising costs and plummeting quality-of-life. There is something about the art form of opera in particular that speaks to the melodrama, tragedy, and desperation people feel in a turbulent political moment. The immersive nature of opera, which fills the senses with orchestra, voice, sets, costumes, and acting, cuts through the numbness we often experience from overloading ourselves with information. La Bohème is an engrossing drama that encourages you to feel.
“We will be doing a period production, meaning it will look and feel like it’s taking place in 19th century in Paris. We are not setting it in outer space or Atlantis, or anything like that. For people who have never been to an opera before, La Bohéme will look and feel like what they’re likely envisioning a prototypical grand opera to be,” Cox said.
A New Venue
But Curlew River is a new step for the Pittsburgh Opera, as it will be their first time performing in Calvary Episcopal Church. “Curlew River, which was inspired by medieval mystery plays, was created with the express intent of being performed in a church,” Cox said. “Its world premiere in 1964 was at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Suffolk, England. In fact, it’s the first of composer Benjamin Britten’s three ‘Parables for Church Performance’. Calvary Episcopal Church is gorgeous, with the atmosphere and environment that will make Curlew River a stunning and unique operatic experience for our patrons.”
Time to Act is a collaboration between three women in opera, composer Laura Kaminsky, librettist Crystal Manich, and dramaturg Amy Hutchison. It follows a group of teenagers working on a production of Sophocles’ Antigone, when they find out one has a dark, violent secret that inspires them to rewrite the play. Pittsburgh Opera received an OPERA America grant to support the commission as part of OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers program.
Fellow Travelers is based on a novel by Thomas Mallon and had its premiere in 2016 at the Cincinnati Opera. It’s a timely story, set during the McCarthy era “lavender scare,” which sought to purge homosexuals from government and other places of employment. The novel and the opera follow two men working in the government who fall for each other during this tense moment.
Cox said ““What unites these five operas is they are all of the highest caliber; they each showcase the majesty of the human voice and the power of opera’s unique storytelling through song.” Tickets will become available via the Pittsburgh Opera’s website.
Story by Emma Riva
Photos courtesy of the Pittsburgh Opera
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