Performances of Tolomeo and Figaro highlight Glimmerglass Opera’s summer season in Cooperstown

No artistic enterprise is more labor-intensive than opera. For cost alone, the stakes are always high. And no theatrical enterprise must try to cosset audiences so finicky—not to say stridently opinionated—as those for opera. All of which makes you wonder how the Glimmerglass Opera Company of Cooperstown became so intoxicated with such risk-taking.

There is rarely any question about the quality of the singing, which can range from excellent to breathtaking. But when it comes to picking what operas we are going to see and how they will be interpreted, you can be sure that Glimmerglass will never deliver the same old thing. That’s why Glimmerglass draws audiences from the greatest distance. And no other company so stirs up an audience’s artistic juices and so fires debate.

“The Trolley Song” and other hits drive Merry-Go-Round’s spirited revival of Meet Me in St. Louis

The Vincente Minnelli-Judy Garland Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) ranks No. 10 in the American Film Institute’s roster of all-time great movie musicals. The 22-year-old Judy has red hair, and director Minnelli’s camera is unmistakably in love with her. This gives the folks at Auburn’s Merry-Go-Round Playhouse a formidable task: take the best elements of the original, restage them and try to make you forget the movie. The key to making the live-on-stage version better is what are generally called “production values,” and as MGR gets ready to launch its nationally marketed musical theater festival, those are higher than ever.

The Talent Company’s All Shook Up cruises through a swivel-hipped batch of Elvis Presley rock hits

 Although every single American citizen knows that Elvis Presley sang “All Shook Up,” the show titled All Shook Up sets out to invert every audience expectation. For one thing, it contains no Elvis impersonators, even though the subtitle reads, “Inspired by and featuring the songs of Elvis Presley.” The main character, a dark-browed roustabout named Chad (Tom Warner), might sport a curl-lipped snarl, but he resembles more the Marlon Brando character in The Wild One. Less expected are multiple allusions to Shakespeare (nothing to worry about), trampled racial taboos and abundant edgy humor. The Talent Company’s current production of All Shook Up is now shaking up the floorboards at the New Times Theater, inside the New York State Fairgrounds.

Grease is the word: Tom Warner (center) tells kids how to rock’n’roll in the Talent Company’s All Shook Up, featuring (first row, from left) Nina Pelligra, Danielle Lovier, Carleena Manzi, Nicole Attaie, David Cotter, Samantha Rey, Bianca Grant and Taylor Bigelow; (second row, from left) Eddie Powers, Jordan Westfall, Daryl Acevedo, Sean McAnaney, Mike Winslow, Edmond O’Neal and Paige Marsteller.

Tourists visit a time-warped Scottish village in the still enchanting Brigadoon, now at Cortland Repertory

The American theater was a different place when Brigadoon premiered in 1947. For one, labor costs were much lower. So the first thing that strikes you about the vibrant new production at Cortland Repertory Theatre of the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe evergreen is how huge it is: 34 speaking, singing and dancing roles, without counting the bagpiper. And seven musicians in the pit at stage right. Measured in terms of Scottish frugality, no other show of the summer returns such a large share of artistry for each penny of admission.