News from the Noteworthy from The Glimmerglass Festival

Festival: With Gratitude for Our Community

Last month, we announced two initiatives to celebrate and thank our local community. One in particular, our Neighbors’ Nights initiative, in which we are offering $35.00 tickets on Thursday nights in August, sparked a reaction. In the weeks since that announcement, friends throughout the community have reached out to us expressing their gratitude, excitement and, to our surprise, some concern.

Thank you. Thank you for reaching out, for asking questions, and for feeling so deeply about this organization and all we do. This kind of support (support that has been ever-present for nearly 50 years!) is what inspired us to plan Neighbors’ Nights. And we have been planning Neighbors’ Nights for some time now—proactively and strategically allocating funds to subsidize the costs of these nights.

We have long been aware that ticket prices can be a barrier for many people who would love to attend a performance here at The Glimmerglass Festival. Setting ticket prices is a delicate act of balancing the financial needs of the organization with the financial realities of the world around us. This is why we partnered with our sponsors—Honorary Life Trustees Faith E. Gay and Francesca Zambello, Trustee Patricia Chadwick, and Amica Companies Foundation, and longtime supporter Andrew Martin-Weber—to offset the costs associated with Neighbors’ Nights tickets. These sponsors understand that in order to fulfill our mission of providing enriching cultural experiences for ALL in our community, we must maintain a sustainable financial model. They have made that possible.

One sponsor we all love and admire, Francesca Zambello, had this to say about Neighbors’ Nights: “Although I am not working at Glimmerglass, my heart and soul are always with making opera, music, and theater accessible to all. My wife, Faith, and I wanted to help the festival with a special ticket offer for Neighbors’ Nights. We hope you will take advantage of this gift to the community.”

It is no secret that performing arts organizations throughout the country are under intense financial pressure. Emerging from the global pandemic, the cost of everything from labor to supplies has gone up, while audience behaviors have changed and long-established support for the arts has withered. Glimmerglass is not immune to these changes. And while we do need our community more than ever, Neighbors’ Nights is not a solution to these problems. It is simply our way of sharing our gratitude for a community that will ensure we weather these trying times.

We hope you are excited to share these evenings with your friends and family. We are certainly excited to see you all this summer at the festival! To take advantage of Neighbors’ Nights, call the Box Office at (607) 547-2255, Monday through Friday, between 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Rob Ainsley is the artistic and general director of The Glimmerglass Festival.