The Long Leaf Opera Festival is a collaborative process between  outstanding vocalists, artistic and technical staffs, instrumentalists, composers, and librettists. We produce and cultivate fully staged operas originally written in English and specifically highlight American composers. As our founder said is 1998, “somebody has to do this.”

The famous composer, Ned Rorem, once complained that in the United States, you hear opera sung in every language but English. Our native composers spend years of their lives working on operas that seldom see a performance. We are changing that.

Our festival is not a dusty “museum” of works that have been presented hundreds of times.  Long Leaf’s inspiration is drawn from Menotti, Floyd, and Moore to name a few. We are also inspired by composers of this generation and have commissioned or premiered new works from Feigin, Beck, Carter, and Heggie.

Our operas are presented in an informal festival atmosphere which helps makes a somewhat daunting art form less so. Our audience,  whom we want to entertain, stimulate, and inspire, is invited to dress casually and children are welcome. Ticket prices are as low as possible. What good is a commitment to our art if there is no one around to hear it?