HAPPY END to Make NYC Debut From Four Upstate Opera Companies
The production features instrumentalists from Manhattan School of Music's jazz program with Rob Ainsley at the piano.
Four of New York State’s leading opera organizations join forces for a rare New York City appearance when The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Saratoga, Finger Lakes Opera and Seagle Festival bring their acclaimed collaborative production of Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s Happy End to Manhattan for one night only on Thursday, November 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center.
The production’s New York City premiere, co-presented by Kaufman Music Center and The Glimmerglass Festival, marks a special moment in an unprecedented statewide collaboration: four independent arts organizations from across New York State have joined forces to create, produce and tour a single opera project, sharing artists, artistic leadership, resources and audiences. After traveling to venues throughout New York and Western Massachusetts — from Rochester and Saratoga Springs to the Adirondacks, Hudson Valley and Cooperstown — the production now makes its highly anticipated Manhattan debut in a performance that features instrumentalists from the Manhattan School of Music’s jazz program with Rob Ainsley at the piano.
The November 12 performance offers New York City audiences a rare opportunity to experience the artistic energy of the Upstate opera community in one intimate evening.
“This production of Happy End shows what can happen when the Upstate New York opera community comes together to make something that no one organization could have made on its own,” said Rob Ainsley, Artistic & General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival, who serves as pianist and music director of Happy End. “Bringing Glimmerglass, Opera Saratoga, Finger Lakes Opera and Seagle Festival together has allowed us to create a production that travels — and, importantly, allows our artists and our audiences to travel with it. Bringing this work to New York City for one night is a wonderful culmination of that collaborative spirit and an opportunity to introduce a wider audience to the depth of artistic talent being cultivated here. It is also a unique opportunity to give the talented student instrumentalists of the Manhattan School of Music’s jazz program the chance to engage directly with Weill’s extraordinary music.”
Directed by Mary Birnbaum, General & Artistic Director of Opera Saratoga, the production offers a fresh, intimate take on the biting 1929 musical satire. Set in a smoky Chicago speakeasy where gangsters conduct business while Salvation Army missionaries try to save souls, Happy End pits faith against commerce and idealism against self-interest, all to Weill, Brecht, and Hauptmann’s unmistakable combination of dark humor, cabaret-inflected melodies and theatrical punch.
The work was Weill and Brecht’s follow-up to their 1928 hit The Threepenny Opera, but its 1929 Berlin premiere closed after just seven performances. It has since become one of their most enduring collaborations. Its unforgettable score includes “Bilbao Song,” “Mandalay Song” and “Surabaya Johnny.”
This production brings together all the original songs, with English lyrics from Michael Feingold's American adaptation, with a compact new English book by Glimmerglass dramaturg Kelley Rourke. The result is a streamlined, fast-moving theatrical experience performed entirely in English and without intermission.
At the center of the production is Ana Karneža, winner of the 2024 Kurt Weill Foundation Lotte Lenya Competition, as The Fly. The cast also features Christine Taylor Price as Lieutenant Lillian Holiday, Gregory Feldmann as Bill Cracker, Lisa Marie Rogali as the Major, Jonathan Pierce Rhodes as the Governor, Bradley Bickhardt as Hannibal, Jason Zacher as Benny, William Raskin as Jimmy, and Lauren Torey as Maryjane. Many of the artists have direct connections to more than one of the collaborating companies, underscoring the creative exchange at the heart of the project.
The production grew out of a new partnership convened by The Glimmerglass Festival with Opera Saratoga, Finger Lakes Opera and Seagle Festival. Opera Saratoga was the first organization to join Glimmerglass in developing the collective, with Finger Lakes Opera and Seagle Festival subsequently joining the initiative. Together, the organizations created a touring model designed to bring high-caliber opera and musical theater to communities across the region while drawing on each company's distinctive artistic strengths and deep local connections.
The 2026 Happy End tour has traveled to eight venues across New York State and Western Massachusetts, encompassing communities from the Adirondacks and Capital Region to the Finger Lakes and Central New York, before concluding its Upstate run at The Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown. The Manhattan performance provides the project with an opportunity to bring the four-company collaboration to New York City — and to introduce audiences there to the breadth and vitality of the state's opera ecosystem.
“This production has been an extraordinary example of what is possible when organizations choose collaboration over isolation,” said Mary Birnbaum. “Happy End is a piece about unlikely alliances, competing ideals and people trying to find their way through a complicated world. There is something especially fitting about four opera companies coming together to tell that story — and then bringing it to New York City.”
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