The Opera Festival of Chicago announces tickets are now on sale for its fifth season of the Festival The 2025 season, May 9 – June 29, will be seen at venues across the Chicagoland area. The 2025 Festival commences with The Love of Three Kings (L’amore dei tre re) by Italo Montemezzi, May 9 and May 11, and continues with its Young Artists program performing a delicious program featuring songs inspired by food in opera, Delicatessen Recital, June 5, the Opera Festival of Chicago's leading artists then appear in concert for Love is a Triangle, June 14, with the season concluding with Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, June 27 and 29. Single tickets are $25 - $50 with subscriptions available at OperaFestivalChicago.org.
“The 2025 Festival, our fifth season, is going to be a season of celebration here at the Opera Festival of Chicago. This organization began forging its path in the opera world in 2021 with the mission of presenting Italian opera masterworks that rarely-if ever- grace the stage in the United States,” said General Director Sasha Gerritson. “These fully staged productions featured star-studded casts and have included several United States and Chicago premieres. We look forward to welcoming audiences from all over the Chicagoland area to this year’s season, which is based on a powerful theme, “Love is a Triangle,” and continues our mission in 2025 with concerts and two Italian masterworks.”
The 2025 Opera Festival of Chicago includes:
The Love of Three Kings (L’Amore dei tre Re)
Friday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 11 at 2 p.m.
by Italo Montemezzi
Directed by General Director Sasha Gerritson
Music Directed by Uff. Emanuele Andrizzi
Cast includes: Andrea Silvestrelli (bass), Andrew Morstein (tenor), Franco Pomponi (baritone), Maria Kanyova (soprano)
Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave.
Tickets: $25 - $50
This dark and powerful tale of love, passion, jealousy, betrayal and murder, was once a staple of the operatic repertoire, then mysteriously vanished. For the first time in 70 years, The Love of Three Kings returns to Chicago.
Young Artists program
Delicatessen Recital
Thursday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Artifact Events, at 4325 N. Ravenswood Ave.
Tickets: $50
The Opera Festival continues to grow its Young Artists program, a partnership with the opera programs at DePaul University and Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. This season its rising talents perform in this concert inspired by food in opera.
Presented in collaboration with the Accademia Italiana della Cucina.
Love is a Triangle
Saturday, June 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Jarvis Opera Hall, Holtschneider Performance Center at DePaul University School of Music, 800 W. Belden Ave.
Tickets: $50
Celebrating the Opera Festival Chicago’s fifth season’s theme, “Love is a Triangle,” Chicago's leading artists gather for a concert featuring Verdi, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni and others highlighting the beating pulse of Italian opera - the themes of love, betrayal and jealousy.
Pagliacci
by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Directed by General Director Sasha Gerritson
Conductor Maestro Sir Emanuele Andrizzi
Cast includes: Franco Pomponi (baritone) and Michelle Allie Drever (soprano) with the Opera Festival of Chicago Orchestra
Friday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 29 at 2 p.m.
North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie
Tickets: $25 - $50
The 2025 season concludes with one of the pillars of Italian opera and one of the most passionate dramas of all times, Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Sung in Italian, Pagliacci follows the story of a troupe of actors led by Canio and his unfaithful wife Nedda and features the famous aria “Vesti la giubba.” Love triangles, heartbreaks, betrayal and violent verismo vendettas erupt on stage, where art imitates life in this tragic masterpiece.
ABOUT SASHA GERRITSON, GENERAL DIRECTOR
Sasha Gerritson is a highly sought after opera and musical theater stage director who directs for many local and regional companies, specializing in traditional productions of believed repertoire. For the Opera Festival of Chicago, Gerritson received rave reviews for her production of Assassinio nella Cathedrale (2023). She also is regularly involved with Music Theater Works where she recently directed Guys and Dolls (March 6 - 30, 2025), Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon (2023) and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (2022) both to great critical acclaim.
Gerritson served as the Opera and Music Theatre director of Northeastern Illinois University from 2010-2022, has directed for Musica Nelle Marche (Urbino, Italy), Opera Piccola, DePaul University, the Cherub Music Theatre program for Northwestern University, in addition to various other summer programs in the area.
In addition to her stage direction work, she is a choral conductor and singer, serving as the director of music ministries for the Park Ridge Community Church. She also proudly serves on a number of boards city-wide, including The Brookfield Zoo, the Navy Pier Foundation, the Goodman Theatre and DePaul University, for which she is vice chair.
Gerritson lives in Glenview with her husband, Eugene Jarvis, and their two sons.
ABOUT OPERA FESTIVAL OF CHICAGO
The Opera Festival of Chicago presents world-class standard productions of Italian opera masterpieces in Chicago that rarely grace the stage in the United States. In doing so the Opera Festival of Chicago aspires to: generate an inquisitive operatic appetite within Chicago audiences; make its work – and its cultural context – accessible to a wide audience; provide a stimulating and inspirational environment of Italian opera for artists and audiences alike; provide a vital opportunity for young artists entering the profession to uphold the high integrity and demands of Italian opera with artists and musicians who are established professionals and to highlight and celebrate the immense talent that has originated from the Chicagoland area.
The 2025 Festival is sponsored by the Illinois Arts Council, Istituto Italiano di Cultura and Roosevelt University.
TOP ROW (L to R): Sasha Gerritson, Maestro Sir Emanuele Andrizzi and Andrea Silvestrelli (bass)
BOTTOM ROW (L to R): Andrew Morstein (tenor), Franco Pomponi (baritone) and Maria Kanyova (soprano)
TOP ROW (L to R): Sasha Gerritson and Maestro Sir Emanuele Andrizzi
BOTTOM ROW: (L to R): Franco Pomponi (baritone) and Michelle Allie Drever (soprano)