University Opera Theatre
I ran away to the opera - and never looked back
- David Walsh, Director
2025-2026 Season.
Street Scene
Nov. 20 - 22, 2025: 7:30 PM
Nov. 23, 2025: 1:30 PM
Ted Mann Concert Hall
Purchase Tickets
Hänsel und Gretel
April 23 - 25, 2026: 7:30 PM
April 26, 2026: 1:30 PM
Ted Mann Concert Hall
Tickets coming soon.
The University of Minnesota opera program has been in the hands of artistic director David Walsh since 2002. Following a significant international career as a stage director of opera, he turned his attention to the professional training and development of young opera singers through two major ensembles at the UMN School of Music.
University Opera Theatre
Director: Professor David Walsh
Audition required.
Opera Theatre is an auditioned ensemble open to students of the School of Music and from across the University with significant training and experience in classical vocal performance - comprising opera, operetta, and musical theatre. Opera Theatre presents an intensive program of classical and contemporary repertoire through two fully-staged productions with orchestra each year, in collaboration with University Symphony Orchestra, as well as other professional ensembles presented in the School of Music’s gorgeous Ted Mann Concert Hall.
Course Number
MUS 5280-001(Registration takes place following a successful audition)
Meeting Times
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 2:30 – 5:30
Saturday: 10:30 – 5:30
NB. The operas are double-cast and each student attends a maximum of 9 hours per wk.
Opera Workshop
Audition required.
Opera Workshop is an auditioned ensemble open to students of the School of Music and from across the University. Although it is an auditioned ensemble and requires some level of vocal training, it welcomes students who are not specifically focused on a professional career in music but have a strong affinity for opera and/or musical theatre and would like to participate in the ensemble. This class functions as a training program for the lyric stage. Students engage in exercises and improvisations which then culminate in staged scenes from opera, operetta, and musical theatre which are presented in workshop format (rehearsal props and costumes from our stock) in Room 99, our wonderful rehearsal space, at the end of each semester.
Course Number
MUS 5250-001/002 (Registration takes place following a successful audition and in consultation with the Director of Opera)
Meeting Times
Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30 – 6:30 PM
NB. There will be some Monday evening rehearsals, as necessary.
2025-2026 Director's Notes
For over two decades, University Opera Theatre has regaled, and sometimes provoked, its devotees with an adventurous brand of opera and musical theatre presentations. Whether rethinking the classics, such as Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, or breaking new ground with contemporary operas like Robert Aldridge’s Elmer Gantry and Laura Kaminsky’s Hometown to the World, Opera Theatre has aimed to broaden the perspectives of its young performers and the audiences alike. Undaunted by the challenges of modern repertoire - including the operas of Leos Janacek (Jenufa, The Cunning Little Vixen) and Benjamin Britten (Albert Herring, The Rape of Lucretia, Turn of the Screw, Midsummer Nights Dream) - University Opera Theatre, in partnership with the University Symphony Orchestra under the distinguished leadership of Maestro Mark Russell Smith, has reached the pinnacle of artistic achievement recently with a spectacular new production of the Chinese-American Opera Dream of the Red Chamber by composer Bright Sheng and librettist David Henry Hwang. Playing to packed houses in the Ted Mann Concert Hall last November, ours became only the second production of the opera since its premiere at San Francisco Opera in 2016! The General Director of San Francisco Opera, Matthew Shilvock, attended our University Opera Theatre performances and came backstage after the show to commend the youthful cast and crew on their immense success in bringing the opera to life! Our production was made possible through extremely generous financial and logistical support from the Chinese Heritage Foundation of Minnesota under the visionary leadership of its Executive Director, Pearl Bergad!
At a time when relations between countries across the world have become increasingly fraught and divisive, University Opera Theatre is striving to build bridges between peoples and cultures. This season’s fall semester production of the ‘Broadway’ opera, Street Scene by Jewish émigré composer Kurt Weill, with lyrics by African-American poet Langston Hughes, to a text by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Elmer Rice, continues that worthy tradition. In pairing Street Scene with the spring semester classic opera Hansel und Gretel, composed by Engelbert Humperdinck and inspired by the famous Brothers Grimm fairytale, it is our fervent hope that all who share in the experience of these performances will go away with the strong conviction that ‘Music’ can indeed lift the hearts of men and women everywhere, like nothing else on earth, and that this is perhaps the greatest gift of the gods to humanity!