The opera curriculum is an important element of singer training at Lawrence and is uniquely designed with the specific needs of the undergraduate singer in mind. The curriculum is divided into four loosely consecutive tiers that increasingly emphasize a culminating public performance. These ensemble classes establish an environment for the student to incrementally build and hone the craft of a skilled singing actor.
Performance Skills for Singers
Performance Skills is a workshop-style class that introduces the student to foundational elements of stage performance, whether recital, concert, or opera.
Opera Workshop
Opera Workshop is also a workshop-style class that builds on the concepts and skills of Performance Skills and increases focus on the specifics of the opera stage. The class culminates in a showcase presentation.
Opera Scenes
Opera Scenes provides performance practice for the singing actor. In original language, students prepare roles from opera scenes in a wide range of historical periods and theatrical styles. The public performance of Opera Scenes is one of the major ensemble offerings at Lawrence. The 2010-11 performance showcased scenes from Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Verdi’s Falstaff, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and Lortzing’s Wildschütz.
Mainstage Opera
The Mainstage Opera is the centerpiece of the opera curriculum at Lawrence. The opera, usually sung in English, is fully staged and performed with full orchestra. The 2011-2012 opera will be Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. Past productions include The Bartered Bride, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, The Magic Flute, Hansel and Gretel, Candide, and L'Étoile.
In addition to the Opera Curriculum, the Theater Department produces a fully staged musical with full orchestra every other year, an offering that is augmented by the yearly student-produced musical. Students also often have the opportunity to perform in student-produced chamber operas or opera scenes.
Coordinator
- Bonnie Koestner
Associate Professor of Music
Bonnie Koestner has served as pianist, vocal coach, chorus master and assistant conductor in over two hundred productions for opera companies throughout the United States. Most recently she was Chorus Master and Head of Music Staff for Florida Grand Opera in Miami. For the San Francisco Opera she prepared the American premieres of Tippett's King Priam and Reimann's Ghost Sonata, along with more traditional repertoire. Other companies include Baltimore, Atlanta, Palm Beach, Utah, Lake George, Sacramento, Sarasota, Des Moines Metro, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Shreveport. While at Nevada Opera she developed the Nevada Opera Studio, a highly successful education and outreach program that brings opera to approximately 20,000 students per year. Ms. Koestner was also the head opera coach for sixteen years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She was Chorus Master and coach for Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York from 1997-2011, and will join the music staff of Central City Opera in Colorado for the summer of 2012.
Ms. Koestner is a graduate of Lawrence University and holds an M. M. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has also studied at L'Università per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy.
Contact by e-mail: bonnie.koestner@lawrence.edu
Faculty
- Bonnie Koestner
Associate Professor of Music
Bonnie Koestner has served as pianist, vocal coach, chorus master and assistant conductor in over two hundred productions for opera companies throughout the United States. Most recently she was Chorus Master and Head of Music Staff for Florida Grand Opera in Miami. For the San Francisco Opera she prepared the American premieres of Tippett's King Priam and Reimann's Ghost Sonata, along with more traditional repertoire. Other companies include Baltimore, Atlanta, Palm Beach, Utah, Lake George, Sacramento, Sarasota, Des Moines Metro, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Shreveport. While at Nevada Opera she developed the Nevada Opera Studio, a highly successful education and outreach program that brings opera to approximately 20,000 students per year. Ms. Koestner was also the head opera coach for sixteen years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She was Chorus Master and coach for Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York from 1997-2011, and will join the music staff of Central City Opera in Colorado for the summer of 2012.
Ms. Koestner is a graduate of Lawrence University and holds an M. M. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has also studied at L'Università per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy.
Contact by e-mail: bonnie.koestner@lawrence.edu
- David Becker
Professor of Music
David E. Becker was appointed Director of Orchestral Studies and Conductor of the Symphony, Chamber and Opera Orchestras at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music (WI) beginning September 2005, and Professor Becker was the recipient of the Lawrence University 2010 "Excellence in Teaching Award." He recently served as the Interim Conductor of the Fox Valley Symphony Youth Orchestra (Appleton, WI), and guest conducted the Zhuying Symphony Orchestra in Guangzhou and Zhanjiinag, China.
He was Director of Orchestras and Professor of the Graduate Orchestral Conducting Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1984-2005. Maestro Becker and the UW Symphony Orchestra received critical acclaim for their international tours to Central Europe (1998) and Spain (2001). He was the Associate Conductor of the Madison Symphony (1985-1992) and Music Director/Conductor of the Racine Symphony (WI) (1989-1993).
Before coming to Madison in 1984, he was Director of Orchestras and Graduate Conducting at the University of Miami, Coral Gables. He went to Miami in 1980 from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he was Associate Professor of Applied Viola and Conductor of the String Arts Ensemble. During the 1980-82 seasons, Mr. Becker was appointed Assistant Conductor for Maestro Rainer Miedel and the Florida Philharmonic (Miami). Other resident conducting appointments have included the Northern Ohio (Oberlin), Wisconsin (Madison), and Greater Miami (FL) Youth Symphony Orchestras, and the Brevard (NC) Summer Music Festival.
Mr. Becker's career as a violist has included the Atlanta, Syracuse, Savannah, Louisville, Memphis, and Madison Symphonies, the Santa Fe and Miami Operas, the Sewanee (TN), Brevard (NC), and Peninsula (WI) Summer Music Festivals, the resident faculty string quartets at the Universities of Miami, Georgia, Memphis State, and Oberlin Conservatory, and the Eduard Melkus String Quartet touring in the U.S. and Europe.
In addition to his active conducting and performing schedule, Mr. Becker is widely recognized for his dedication to teaching young musicians which has resulted in guest conducting, orchestral clinics and All-State Honor Orchestras in 40 states. Upcoming conducting engagements include the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the University of Wisconsin Music Clinic Honors Orchestra, the NAJME All-National Honors Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, a clinician/conductor for the ASTA National Orchestra Festival, guest faculty at the Ohio State University Summer String Teacher's Workshop, and All-State Honors Orchestras/Regional Orchestras in NY and SC.
Contact by email: david.e.becker@lawrence.edu
- Timothy X. Troy
Professor of Theatre Arts and the J.Thomas and Julie Esch Hurvis Professor of Theatre and Drama
Timothy X. Troy is a stage director of plays, operas and musicals. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History of Ideas - Modern, from Lawrence University. He earned the Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts/Directing from the University of Iowa, where he directed the original production of five new plays from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. At Iowa, he studied with Lee Breuer, Robert Headley, and the renowned Romanian designer, Daniel Nemteanu. Mr. Troy was a regular guest stage director for the University of Wisconsin Madison Opera. There he worked with Karlos Moser mounting productions including the Lee Hoiby/Lanford Wilson opera version of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, and premiered a new opera called Mirabell: Books of Number by Minneapolis composer Marjorie Hess. For DuPage Opera Theater in Chicago, he directed Janacek's Jenufa and enjoyed further critical success with The Elixir of Love, La Bohème, La Traviata and The Magic Flute.
Mr. Troy's musical repertory includes productions of Evita, Into the Woods, Big River, and Pippin. After serving as a directing intern at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, much of his theatre work was showcased at the Boulevard Ensemble in Milwaukee. He directed such diverse projects as William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, Machiavelli's The Mandrake, Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. His 2005 production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for Cornertsone Theatre was hailed as one of ‘Top-Ten’ productions for that season. Troy’s 2005 production of El Barberillo de Lavapies was the first offering of a zarzuela for Light Opera Oklahoma.
He continues his work as a stage director, teaches courses in acting, direction, Voice and Diction and script analysis, and serves as Chair for the Department of Theatre Arts. Professor Troy’s regular contribution to Lawrence’s Freshman Studies program was honored with the Freshman Teaching Prize in 2004. Since serving as Visiting Professor at Trinity College-Dublin in 2005, Mr. Troy has turned his attention to playwriting. His most recent plays, The Dublin Journal and The Life of Me are currently under consideration at theatres in the US, Ireland, and the UK. In early 2007, the Lawrence Conservatory of Music premiered his Vietnam Era adaptation of Stravinsky’s, L’Histiore du Soldat. Mr. Troy is also serves as producer and artistic director of the Lawrence University Theatre of the Air. He was a featured contributor to the Oscar Award-winning film, A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, a film by fellow Lawrence graduate, Eric Simonson.
Contact by e-mail: timothy.x.troy@lawrence.edu
- John T. Gates
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music
John T. Gates has been a member of the Lawrence voice faculty since 2005. As a bass soloist in many of Germany's more important opera houses and concert halls, he sang some 1000 performances over a period of thirteen years. His wide-ranging opera repertoire covers eighty roles, including standard works (Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte), early music (Ariodates in Händel´s Serse), and numerous world premiers (Oscar laureate Cong Su's Wenn die Sonne aufgeht). He commands an equally extensive song and concert repertoire, including Verdi's Requiem, J. S. Bach's St. John's Passion, and Schubert's Winterreise.
Gates holds the degrees Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music from the University of South Carolina. He earned his Doctor of Music from Florida State University. His treatise dealt with communication in modern opera. Additional research focused on Romantic dualism in Schumann's song literature.
Prior to his appointment at Lawrence Conservatory, Gates taught voice and directed opera at Stephen F. Austin State University (Texas) and at the University of Miami.
Contact by e-mail: john.t.gates@lawrence.edu
- Karen Leigh-Post
Associate Professor of Music
In Europe, critics described Karen Leigh’s Carmen as "a very attractive heroine with a striking mezzo soprano" (Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Landeszeitung) and commended the "well-formed supple [vocal] lines of her Venus" (Tannhäuser, Neue Zeit) while the New York Times wrote, "Karen Leigh sang extremely well" in the world premiere of Animalen which opened the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Past seasons have also found Ms. Leigh’s versatile mezzo in Germany and New York singing Jenny in Die Dreigroschenoper with the infamous Gisela May, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and Anita in West Side Story. Additional credits include leading roles in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Madama Butterfly, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Traviata, L’Elisir d’Amore, The Mikado and Hänsel und Gretel.
Ms. Leigh further demonstrated her dramatic mastery when she transported audiences via the intimidating role of Maria Callas in Master Class. “Leigh is brilliant in her depth of character, her pacing, her facial expressions, her gestures." (Post Crescent).
In recital and concert, Ms. Leigh has been heard on several PBS broadcasts singing the works of Mozart with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Stephen Paulus on NPR, Schumann on “Live from the Landmark,” and Bernstein at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. In addition to regular appearances with the New York chamber ensemble Cassandra, Ms. Leigh has been heard in New York and across the United States singing Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor and Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, and Bach’s Weinachts Oratorium in numerous venues.
Her commitment to the promotion of American art music and its composers has reached as near as New York for the premiere of Alan Cohen’s chamber cycle, A Clover and One Bee and as far as Budapest and the Czech Republic with the songs of John Benson. Additional commissions include Jason Hoogerhyde’s color leaves, light stays (for voice, flute, viola, cello and piano), and the more than twenty new songs by as many composers (including Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, and Lori Laitman) which she collected in the ground-breaking anthology American Art Song for the Sacred Service (book and CD available through Classical Vocal Reprints).
Ms. Leigh-Post earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the tutelage of master teacher Shirlee Emmons at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. Other coaches and teachers include Warren Jones, Joan Dornemann, Judith Nicosia and Emma Small. She joined the faculty of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in 1996.
She is especially pleased to note that alumni from her studio of just over a decade receive scholarships to the finest graduate music programs in the country including the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Michigan and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (top Corbett Award); participate in prestigious apprenticeship programs (including Santa Fe Opera); and perform leading roles in New York City venues such as Town Hall with One World Symphony, Garden State Opera, and Bronx Opera to name but a few.
Contact by e-mail: karen.leigh-post@lawrence.edu
- Steven Spears
Associate Professor of Music
Noted for being “most consistently musical, most clear in diction,” possessing a “stunningly beautiful, edgeless tenor” and for “lustrous singing,” tenor Steven Paul Spears has performed with many arts organizations, including those in New York, Berlin, Louisville, Salt Lake City, Memphis, Flagstaff, St. Louis, Palm Beach and Cincinnati.
Specializing in obscure works of the Baroque (Monteverdi and Handel) and Contemporary Periods (Britten and Orff), his operatic repertoire includes the lyric and coloratura roles of Mozart and Rossini, as well as mainstream character roles, such as Little Bat in Floyd’s Susannah and Goro in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Most recently, Steven sang the role of Nebuchadnezzar in Britten’s The Burning Fiery Furnace in a joint production with Kentucky Opera and the Choral Arts Society of Louisville.
In March 2003, under the baton of James Conlon, Steven began a series of performances singing the Harlekin in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, produced in conjunction with the Juilliard School. Originating in New York City, the production has been seen in Spoleto, Italy, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, culminating with a performance in Houston November 2006. The Chicago Tribune said his performance was “most expressive and beautiful of voice.”
In 2005 Steven portrayed Demo in Cavalli’s Giasone under the leadership of Early Music specialist Harry Bicket at the Aspen Opera Theatre, garnering glowing reviews from the New York Times, Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for his comic timing and stage presence.
His avid interest in recital and chamber repertoire has led to engagements with notable organizations, such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Academy of Ancient Music, Louisville Orchestra and Greenwich Music Festival, to name a few. Often in conjunction with performances at other universities, Steven has enjoyed giving master classes, where he promotes healthy singing, commitment to character and the overall enjoyment of making music.
In Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, Steven’s Evangelist was noted in the Courier-Journal as giving “a vigorous point-by-point distillation” with “…exchanges that crackled with a tension that was almost theatrical in intensity.” Of his aria singing in Bach’s St. John Passion, the Wall Street Journal said Steven brought out “one reason why Bach’s vocal melodies have such complex, searching contours; they’re tracing not just musical thoughts, but also the changing weight and implications of the text,” giving a performance “so true to the words.” Steven will be performing in a Bach concert commemorating the life of Blanche Honegger Moyse, founder of the New England Bach Festival in October.
Other appearances this season include a performance of Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with the Choral Arts Society of Louisville, a movement from Frank Tichelli’s Symphony #1 with the Lawrence Wind Ensemble, and recitals.
Steven’s recording of Renard, utilizing Stravinsky’s translation and final editions to the score, conducted by Robert Craft was released in early 2005 by Naxos Records. His other recording releases include live performances of Bach’s St. John’s Passion and B Minor Mass with the New England Bach Festival, as well as a studio recording of Britten’s Saint Nicolas with the forces of the Choir of St. Francis in the Fields, members of the Louisville Orchestra and conductor, James Rightmyer, in Louisville, KY.
In 2004 Steven received the Master’s Degree in Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Marlena Malas. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of Louisville School, working under Edith Davis Tidwell, with whom he still studies.
Steven is enjoying his twentieth year of singing professionally, beginning his eighth year of teaching at Lawrence Conservatory in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he is associate professor of music in voice and opera and has just accepted the interim music director position at First Presbyterian Church in Neenah, Wisconsin.
Steven Paul Spears' personal webpage: http://www.stevenpaulspears.com
Contact by e-mail: steven.spears@lawrence.edu
