Announcing Opera Company of the Highlands (OCH)…
a professional, not-for-profit opera company based in Orange County, NY.

Headed by soprano Claudia Cummings, the new company is an outgrowth of the performances and work of Festival Theatre of New York, a non-profit organization Cummings co-founded with her husband, Shakespearean actor Jack Aranson, in 1999.

Opera Company of the Highlands enjoyed its world premiere Oct. 21-Nov. 6, 2005 with Johann Strauss’ comic opera, “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat).  Read a review of our warmly received first production, reprinted with permission from the Times Herald Record.

Cummings plans to rehearse her casts just as an established New York City opera company would rehearse. Drawing on her own experience as a former City Opera company member and 25-year veteran of the operatic stage, she plans to run intensive rehearsals three weeks before opening night. Paid professional singers in the lead roles, and interested local community members in smaller parts and the chorus, will then work on the show every day under Cumming’s artistic direction.

"My vision is to produce a real opera company that will enhance the quality of life here in the Hudson Valley,” says Cummings. “I’m doing this because the community has expressed a desire to come to and to participate in opera. The time is right for me, now, to give what I know about the art form.”