MSU Opera Theatre

Each season, the MSU Opera Theatre presents two fully staged and costumed productions with the MSU Symphony Orchestra. Students fill two complete casts for each production, and performances are held in the historic Fairchild Theatre. The theatre is a beautifully renovated space featuring technically advanced acoustics in a small venue setting. With no bad seat in the house, opera-goers enjoy perfect sound and close proximity within air-conditioned comfort, while students in the cast and orchestra gain a professional performance experience. All productions are filmed and often submitted for competitions.

The MSU Opera Theatre Season is generously sponsored by the Worthington Family Foundation.

MSU Opera Director Melanie Helton is professor of voice (soprano). In addition to her teaching and a notable performance career, Professor Helton has built an opera program known for performing award-winning productions.

Past Productions

Watch select performances from the past several years, including:

• Fallstaff and Albert Herring (2022-23)
• Don Giovanni (2020-21)
• Die Fledermaus and La Scala di Seta/Gianni Schicchi (2018-19)
• The Elixir of Love and The Marriage of Figaro(2016-17)
• Handel’s Xerxes (2014-15)
• Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Puccini’s La Bohéme (2013-14)

Other past productions include:

• 

  Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel; Street Scene

• Orpheus in the Underworld; A Room with a View
• The Savage Land/Bernstein Sings America; Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
• A Little Night Music; The Pirates of Penzance
• La Finta Giardinera; Grapes of Wrath
• Susannah; Romeo et Juliette
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Candide
• Cinderella (La Cenerentola); Florencia en el Amazonas
• The Tales of Hoffman; The Rake’s Progress