Areas & Programs

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. Read more about her here.

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MSU Opera Theatre productions
 

2020-21: Scenes from Opera in the time of COVID

2019-20: Orpheus in the Underworld

2018-19: Die Fledermaus; La Scala di Seta/Gianni Schicchi

2017-18: Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck; Street Scene

2016-17: The Elixir of Love; The Marriage of Figaro

2015-16: A Room with a View; The Savage Land/Bernstein Sings America

2014-15: Mozart's Cosi fan tutte; Handel's Xerxes

2013-14: Mozart’s The Magic Flute; Puccini’s La Bohéme

2012-13: Kurt Weill: 2012, But the days grow short ...; A Little Night Music

2011-12: The Pirates of Penzance; The Tales of Hoffmann

2010-11: La Finta Giardinera; Grapes of Wrath

2009-10: Susannah; Romeo et Juliette

2008-09: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Gianni Schicchi, The Marriage of Figaro

2007-08: Candide; Cinderella (La Cenerentola)

2006-07: Florencia en el Amazonas; Don Giovanni

2005-06: The Tales of Hoffman; The Rake’s Progress

2004-05: La Bohème; Nine

2003-04: Cosi fan tutte; Orpheus in the Underworld