CINCINNATI — After two seasons away, Cincinnati Opera plans to return to Cincinnati Music Hall and the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) next June and July for its 2022 Summer Festival.
The company plans to celebrate the homecoming with a full, five-opera season. Shows include popular favorites such "La Bohème," "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Aida." There will also be two world premieres and new-to-Cincinnati productions.
Shows will include collaborations with the Cincinnati Opera Chorus, Cincinnati Ballet and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, per the opera.
“As the arts reopen and stages in Cincinnati once again come alive, we can’t wait to get back home to Music Hall and SCPA,” said Evans Mirageas, the opera's artistic director.
Mirageas went on to say he and the opera feel "lucky" to once again share "all that opera can be" in person.
"Our 2022 season has been planned to do just that—to bring us together and remind us what it feels like to fall in love, to give us a reason to laugh out loud, and to move us with compelling stories that reflect the modern American experience," he added.
The 2022 season includes three productions at Music Hall. It will begin with Giacomo Puccini’s "La Bohème" (June 18, 23, 25).
Soprano Talise Trevigne, who dazzled Cincinnati audiences in 2019 in the title role in "The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess," portrays Mimì. Tenor Ji-Min Park (Alfredo in Cincinnati Opera’s "La Traviata," 2018) plays the role of Rodolfo.
Other performances include Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta "The Pirates of Penzance" (July 7, 9, 10) and Giuseppe Verdi’s "Aida" (July 21, 23, 29, 31), which tells the tale of a forbidden love between an Ethiopian princess and her captor.
There are two operas set to make their respective debuts this July at SCPA’s Corbett Theater. They are William Menefield and Sheila Williams’s "Fierce" (July 6, 8) and "Castor and Patience" (July 22, 24, 26, 28, 30) by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith.
“For the audience, we hope it will feel like both a welcome return to form and an exciting leap forward—a not-to-be-missed chapter in Cincinnati Opera’s vibrant history,” Mirageas added.
The opera will contact renewing subscribers in October. New subscriptions go on sale in January. Single tickets will be available beginning in spring of 2022.
More information is available at cincinnatiopera.org.