Set on Shenandoah Conservatory’s main proscenium stage and directed by our new Director of Opera Ella Marchment, The New World of Opera provides audiences with the full opera experience!

This year’s program features the U.S. premiere of Germaine Tailleferre’s four comic operettas, composed in the style of Rossini, Offenbach, Charpentier and Rameau. A pioneer in the opera world, Tailleferre was the only female member of Les Six, a renowned group of influential twentieth century French composers. In this exclusive and inventive staging, Tailleferre’s operettas are cleverly paired with excerpts and overtures by the classical composers who served as her source of inspiration. Farcical plots, lush designs and the full force of the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra complete the experience as audiences take a journey through the classical French canon and the eyes of a twentieth-century creative genius.

Excerpts sung in various languages with English subtitles