Voice & Opera

Eastman’s Voice & Opera program offers an environment of excellence in which the healthiest development of the vocal artist can be achieved. Vocal technique, repertory, and stylistic expertise underlie the growth of expressive, communicative singers. While an operatic career may be the primary focus of many students pursuing majors in vocal performance at Eastman, the curriculum acknowledges that singers must be versatile, artistically creative, and technically secure in order to compete in today’s marketplace.

Standard opera, operetta, and musical theater repertory provide the ideal laboratory for learning theatrical techniques and stage repertory. Performances include full productions with orchestra, as well as opera scenes. Choral ensembles acquaint students with a diversity of great music and styles both as choristers and as oratorio soloists.

Private lessons and solo and chamber music coaching give students grounding in the world’s great vocal literature. Courses in pedagogy provide relevant information for the singer and pedagogical techniques for the aspiring teacher. Courses in diction, foreign languages, music history, music theory, and the humanities encourage students to develop as complete musicians.

Eastman Opera Theatre presents three productions each year. All productions are double-cast; auditions are open to all Voice & Opera majors, after consultation with the studio teacher. Many Eastman singers enter the operatic profession as a natural extension of their experience in school. Recent productions at the School include Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Albert Herring, and Turn of the Screw, Mecham’s Tartuffe, Conrad Susa’s Transformations, Handel’s Xerxes, Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, Sondheim’s Passion, Bock’s She Loves Me, and Puccini’s La Bohème. Two Opera Scenes Programs are presented to the public at the end of each semester. All students from the opera performance classes participate in these scenes programs. Studio productions are presented at the end of the spring semester. Productions have included: Signor Deluso, Goblin Market, The Telephone, A Hand of Bridge, The Stoned Guest, The Cradle Will Rock, La Voix Humaine, Le Portrait de Manon, and Phi-Phi! Some outreach productions are presented to area public schools.

Frequent visits and master classes by such guest artists as Renée Fleming (MA ‘83), Marilyn Horne, Hermann Prey, William Sharp (MA ‘76), and Dawn Upshaw enhance the vocal experience at Eastman. Vocal coaches such as Armen Guzelimian, Martin Katz, Craig Rutenberg, and Roger Vignoles have also offered master classes at Eastman.