The Sarah and Ernest Butler Opera Center program provides performance training and background for singers, opera directors, opera coaches interested in professional and educational careers. The diverse Vocal Arts faculty brings to the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music the highest level of comprehensive teaching and performing experiences. Our graduates are well prepared for professional careers in opera, higher education, and public school teaching.
Among the performance opportunities designed to provide BOC students with experience and growth are: Butler Opera Center main stage productions, Opera Studio (graduate techniques), Opera Ensemble (undergraduate techniques), Opera Coaching, and Opera Directing.
The Butler Opera Center presents fully-produced diverse productions during the academic year. The 2019-20 repertoire includes Don Giovanni by W. A. Mozart; Mansfield Park by Jonathan Dove; The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten; and L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti. A fall showcase concert will feature undergraduate soloists.
Previous Repertoire
2018-19 repertoire included fully-staged productions of La clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; “An American Evening”: The Women by Pasatieri, The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti, and Trouble in Tahiti by Leonard Bernstein; and a fifteenth-year anniversary Butler Opera Celebration production of Eugene Onegin by P.I. Tchaikovsky. A Fall Opera Scenes Evening included both Graduate and Undergraduate soloists.
2017-18 repertoire include Cosi fan tutte by W. A. Mozart, The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten, and Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi. A Fall Opera Scenes concert showcased graduate and undergraduate singers.
2016-17 repertoire included: Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini, The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti, Four Dialogues by Ned Rorem, Little Women by Mark Adamo and Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Texanische Liebeslieder, composed by David Hanion text by Kathleen Kelly inspired by personal stories of the last living native speakers of the Hill Country Texas German dialect.
2015-16 repertoire included: Hansel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck, Three Decembers and At the Statue of Venus by Jake Heggie, and Dialogues of the Carmelites by Francis Poulenc. The Texas Liebeslieder Project which included a complete performance of the Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder, Op. 52 and 65 and the World Premiere of the Texanische Liebeslieder, composed by David Hanion text by Kathleen Kelly.
2014-15 repertoire included: the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss and Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler, Into the Woods, The Marriage of Figaro, Speed Dating by Michael Ching, Fall Opera Scenes, and a Richard Strauss Liederabend.
2013-14 repertoire included: the world premiere of A Woman in Morocco by Daron Hagen, Past the Checkpoints by David Hanlon, Fall Opera Scenes, Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and La boheme by Giacomo Puccini.
2012-13 repertoire included: Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, Les Enfants Terrible by Phillip Glass, Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Mozart, Orontea by Antonio Cesti, Two Opera Scenes Evenings (graduate and undergraduate), Music Theatre Concert and Operatic Aria Concert.
In addition to the outstanding Butler School of Music performance opportunities there have been European affiliations and exchange programs with the Sibelius Academy (Finland), Royal Academy of Music (Denmark), Academy of Opera (Norway), Conservatorio di Musicia di Perugia (Italy), Conservatorio de las Rosas (Mexico), University of Costa Rica. These programs provided exchange opportunities for Butler School of Music students in foreign countries.