Current Students

Eastman Opera Theatre

The Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, is widely regarded as one of the top music schools in the country.  Since its inception, the Eastman School has provided excellent training for all kinds of musicians.  Eastman graduates are represented on the stages and concert halls of every major performance venue in the world, as performers, conductors, and composers.  In fact, over 90 percent of the more than 9,000 Eastman School alumni are prominent in various fields of the arts.
Eastman Opera Theatre offers a comprehensive program of training and performance opportunities for young singers at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels.  Many Eastman graduates enter the operatic profession as a natural extension of their experience in school, including such distinguished alumni as Renée Fleming, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Nicole Cabell. 


Performing Opportunities
A minimum of three productions are mounted yearly, each within a different-sized performance venue at the Eastman School, including the 3,000-seat Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, the 450-seat Kilbourn Hall, and the 75-seat Opera Studio. Productions feature a wide range of musical styles, most are performed in the original language, and depending on the venue, many use full orchestral accompaniment. Studio productions, scenes programs, and outreach events are also presented to further enhance the variety of performance experience.   Eastman Opera Theatre utilizes a “class blind” approach to casting, meaning that roles go to the singer with the best audition, regardless of their year in school and pending the approval of their studio voice teacher.  Most of our productions feature a mix of upper class undergraduates (juniors and seniors), masters, and doctoral students.  Recent productions include Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi, Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Puccini’s La Rondine and La Bohème, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Albert Herring, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd, Floyd’s Susannah, Handel’s Xerxes, Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, Bock’s She Loves Me, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Lehár’s The Merry Widow.

Advanced Opera Seminar

A course for graduate students in audition techniques.  Students learn how to present themselves effectively in auditions, how to create professional audition materials, and what to expect as they enter the market.  Students work on three arias and a monologue during the course.  Students research the arias and assemble a contextual profile of the piece.  The arias are coached and staged as they would be in the context of the opera, and then from that core understanding of the piece, an appropriate audition format is distilled.  Monologues are presented to help students find appropriate spoken material and refine that part of their audition package.  The semester culminates in an actual audition for a panel of Eastman and outside adjudicators.

Steven Daigle on "Opera"

Course Offerings

Dramatic Coaching for Sophomores – As their first real involvement with the opera program at Eastman, Sophomores each receive a half-hour dramatic coaching weekly.  The coaching sessions focus on monologues as well as the dramatic interpretation of songs that they are working on with their teachers.  Occasionally group classes are offered in movement and dance.  An informal presentation of monologues and/or songs happens at the end of each semester.

 


Intro to Lyric Theatre

The junior-level course for voice majors is Intro to Lyric Theatre.  This is an overview course on performing in opera and musical theatre.  Basic acting technique – including body awareness, stage deportment, principles of naturalism, spoken dialogue, and improvisation – is presented through exercises and interactive lecture.  Scenes from appropriate opera and musical theatre are assigned and prepared for a public program in the spring semester.


Opera Workshop

As seniors, vocal performance majors take Opera Workshop.  This course is designed to build on the foundation of Intro to Lyric Theatre and maximize the students’ acting technique.  The fall semester is focused exclusively on technique building.  In-depth study of body awareness, performance energy, active choices, theatrical context, and elements of style are applied in work on arias, recitative, and spoken dialogue.   The spring semester continues with further application of technique in scene work from operas.  The scenes receive musical and dramatic coaching and then are staged and “workshopped” before being presented at the end of the semester.




Performance Techniques for the Singing Actor

A graduate-level course in acting.  Offered in the fall semester, the course is focused on building acting technique. In-depth study of body awareness, performance energy, active choices, theatrical context, and elements of style are applied in work on arias, recitative, and spoken dialogue.

 

Opera Workshop: Scene Performance

Graduate level application of acting technique through scene study. Participants will be assigned scenes from standard and contemporary operas that are appropriate for their level of development, yet also stretch them as performers. The scenes receive musical and dramatic coaching and then are staged and “workshopped” before being presented at the end of the semester.

 

Seminar in Opera Stage Directing

An introductory course in how to direct an opera or musical.  The course covers the role and responsibilities of the stage director and the process of research, preparation, production supervision, and rehearsal that a director uses to realize their craft.  Students work on various class projects and stage scenes from opera and musical theatre, which are presented in a final presentation.



Opera Production: Stage Management

An introductory course in the roles and responsibilities of the stage manager in opera production.  Students learn the various aspects of stage management and gain practical experience through assisting the Production Stage Manager on an Eastman Opera Theatre production.

Opera Performance Project

Allows students to get course credit for their work in Eastman Opera Theatre productions.  For singers, this could involve performing a major role or a couple of important supporting roles.  For directing candidates, this would involve directing a production in Studio 804 for their final degree project.