Boston University Opera Institute is thrilled to announce this season of projects and productions. Each fall, we put on the annual Fringe Festival, which is a collaboration between CFA School of Music’s Opera Institute and School of Theatre. Fringe features new and rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings.

And in the spring, two mainstage operas invite the BU community and beyond to experience the exceptional talent of the students in the program, within incredible productions supported by the School of Theatre.

2025 – 2026 Season

Fall 2025 Fringe Festival

The Eleanors

October 10-12, 2025

Studio ONE

The Eleanors is a 90-minute chamber opera set in the final year of World War II. Newlywed nurse Maxie turns to her friends Lilian and Ramona for support when her husband Cal is captured during the Battle of the Bulge and imprisoned.  Lyrical, funny, high energy, heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Eleanors is infused throughout with musical influences from swing and American Songbook.

Jodi Goble, composer and librettist • Michael Ching, co-librettist
Matthew Larson, music director • Edward Sturm (CFA’24), stage director

Tickets

Thumbprint

October 24-26, 2025

Studio ONE

Thumbprint is inspired by the extraordinary transformation of Mukhtar Mai, a young woman whose world was shattered by an act of brutality that could have destroyed her. Instead, she discovers a weapon—her voice—and against all odds, to the astonishment of her country and herself, she seeks justice and finds it. “The worst thing in my life is also the best,” she says. “It has given my life meaning.” Her journey resonates beyond borders in its implicit belief that even in the darkest times, one person, one voice, through a single act of courage, can change life for thousands.

Kamala Sankaram, composer • Susan Yankowitz, librettist (from a series of interviews with Mai)
Allison Voth, music director • Grant Sorenson (CFA’26), stage director

Tickets

Mainstage

Roméo et Juliette

February 26-March 1, 2026

Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre

Roméo et Juliette, the well-known Shakespeare story of the warring families (Montague v. Capulet) in which Romeo and Juliette fall in love finds a grand dimension in Gounod’s deeply romantic score.

Charles Gounod, composer • Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, librettists
William Lumpkin, conductor • Eve Summer, stage director

Tickets available soon!

Flight

April 23-26, 2026

Tsai Performance Center

Flight is a superb original modern-day operatic comedy which has found universal popularity, with many different productions and over 150 performances to date across the world. The opera has both laugh-out-loud and more serious moments as the story of the refugee who lives in the airport – inspired by the true-life story of an Iranian refugee who lived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, for 18 years – unfolds around the different characters who find themselves delayed in the terminal.

Jonathan Dove, composer • April De Angelis, librettist
William Lumpkin, conductor • Cara Consilvio, stage director

Tickets available soon!