THE SHINING and More Set for Straz Center's Opera Tampa 25/26 Season
The season will also feature Mozart's The Magic Flute and more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 07, 2025
Straz Center’s Opera Tampa has revealed its 30th anniversary season featuring the work of Benjamin Britten, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi, along with a chilling, modern musical adaptation of The Shining by Paul Moravec, based on the novel by Stephen King.
Straz Center’s Opera Tampa has been thrilling audiences since 1996 and presents an eclectic lineup of works for 25/26 that will appeal to both dyed-in-the-wool fans and neophytes. The blend of English, American, German and Italian fare stretches across three centuries an includes two company premieres.
And now for something completely different … the season includes a musical transformation of Stephen King’s notorious, spine-tingling novel, The Shining. Composed by Paul Moravec with a libretto by Mark Campbell, this notably modern opera delves into all the same dark places that made the Stanley Kubrick film version cinema gold.
“This season’s productions are a testament to opera’s diversity, as well as Opera Tampa’s commitment to both the classics and more recent works,” said Artistic Director Robin Andrew Stamper. “This eclectic lineup supports our belief that opera is a living, breathing art form. We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary by setting our bar even higher for the future.”
Straz Center’s Opera Tampa 2025/2026 season includes:
Benjamin Britten
THE TURN OF THE SCREW
Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, at 2 p.m.
Ferguson Hall
The ghosts of Victorian England come out to spook you in Opera Tampa’s new production of The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten’s old-fashioned haunt-a-thon that pits evil spirits against a pair of innocent children.
Based on the creepy gothic horror novella by Henry James, this chamber opera tells of an orphaned brother and sister in an Essex country house possessed by the apparitions of a former valet and the governess he seduced. A new governess is dispatched to look after the youngsters, but with strict instructions never to write to the owner of the house, never to ask about the property’s dark history and never to abandon the children (at least one, anyway). This is no kid’s opera, so you might consider a babysitter for your visit.
The story is full of twists in the form of 15 variations, with tension created by this “turn of the musical screw’’ − which also suggests a bad situation getting worse. And it does. As the governess begins to see phantoms roaming about and the children, Flora and Miles, acting weirder by the hour, she vows to protect them from what might be an imaginary evil. Nobody knows what’s real or not, but if ghosts are an illusion, why is that rocking horse moving all by itself?
Paul Moravec
THE SHINING
Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at 2 p.m.
Ferguson Hall
Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny! Who can forget Jack Nicholson’s famous scene from the 1980 horror flick The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. But who would have thought the story would find its way into the opera house?
It will next season when Straz Center’s Opera Tampa stages a musical transformation by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, who presented the premiere at the Minnesota Opera in 2016.
If you read the book or enjoyed the movie, the opera should be easy to follow: When Jack Torrence gets a new job, he, his wife Wendy and their son Danny move to the quiet, remote Overlook Hotel in snowy Colorado, until things aren’t so quiet anymore. For inexplicable reasons, Jack descends into madness.
We won’t tell you how things end, because the opera delivers a different punch than King or film director Stanley Kubrick. But the moral of the story is the same: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and if you know what’s good for you, don’t spell the word redrum backwards.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
THE MAGIC FLUTE
Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 1, 2026, at 2 p.m.
Ferguson Hall
Mozart’s The Magic Flute, holds a special place in the hearts of opera lovers, regardless of its implausible storyline. The music is enchanting, and its allure turns adults into children − no wonder it continues to inspire new and creative productions at opera houses around the world.
Straz Center’s Opera Tampa brings to life its own vision of this beloved German singspiel, or “spoken opera,’’ for the 25/26 season, offering audiences a mix of fairy tale and morality play, tunes and noble choral numbers. Mozart hit it out of the park with the coloratura aria “Queen of the Night,” which ranks among the most acrobatic numbers in all opera and alone worth the price of admission.
Follow the adventures of Tamino, Pamina, Papageno, Papagena, Monostatos and Sarastro in a distant land full of trials, wild animals, serpents and gods, all of which give Opera Tampa a dreamscape canvas on which to paint imagery, lore and mysticism. Unlike all the other operas on next season’s lineup, in The Magic Flute everybody lives happily ever after.
Giuseppe Verdi
MACBETH
Friday, April 24, 2026, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, April 26, 2026, at 2 p.m.
Ferguson Hall
No literary figure inspired composers more than Shakespeare, and Verdi was hardly tone-deaf to the musical possibilities of the famed English bard. In Macbeth, Verdi achieves a tragic grandeur that has seldom been equaled in music. He was so hell-bent on making his tenth opera a smash that he told his librettist, Francesco Piave, to write something bubbling with “extravagance and originality, brevity and sublimity.’’
Set in a gloomy Scottish castle and its moors, the opera gets us in the mood from the onset, and bathes us in Verdi’s lush, often cryptic score − a highlight being the “Witches’ Chorus.” Verdi had a lot to work with: the tale of a military commander whose wife fuels his ambition to be the king of Scotland after murdering the sitting ruler; a spiral of ensuing violence; all-consuming guilt; a descent into madness; civil war; and for good measure, another murder.
Verdi’s musical vision of a Shakespeare classic is a timeless jaunt suitable for any age − the music intensely vocal, rich in choral drama, and the plot as compelling as it gets.
Casts, conductors and other creative team members for the 25/26 Opera Tampa 30th anniversary season will be announced later.
In addition to the three mainstage performances, the Opera Tampa season also incorporates a variety of special events. Information on these programs, including dates, times, prices, etc. will be announced later.
OPERA EDUCATION and COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Straz Center’s Opera Tampa provides meaningful arts education and community engagement experiences for children and adults throughout the year.
During the last decade, the Opera Tampa Singers have engaged more than 75,000 students, teachers, families and seniors in the joy of opera at more than 300 locations throughout the Tampa Bay region. This comprehensive outreach program includes school assemblies, pop-up performances, artist residencies and so much more.
And every year, hundreds of students – many experiencing opera for the first time – attend dress rehearsals of Opera Tampa mainstage productions. From sound check to orchestra tuning to lights down, they get a peek behind the curtain as the productions unfold before their eyes.
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