University Opera

University Opera 2024/25 Productions

Each year, we present an annual season of two fully staged operas, as well as evenings of opera scenes and one-act operas.

Special Workshop of new opera La Ballonniste - Sept. 24, 2024 - Collins Recital Hall

Free | No ticket required

A special workshop of new opera La Ballonniste, by Lisa Bielawa, composer, and Claire Solomon, librettist. La Ballonniste is a story about the first female balloonist in late 18^th-century France.

Public performance of excerpts Sept. 24, 2024, Collins Recital Hall, 7:30 pm

Songbird - Nov. 22-26, 2024 – Music Hall

Purchase tickets

Adaptation by Eric Sean Fogel, James Lowe, and Kelley Rourke
Musical arrangement and orchestration by James Lowe
English lyrics and book by Kelley Rourke
Based on La Périchole by Jacques Offenbach, Henri Meilhac, and Ludovic Halévy
Commissioned by the Glimmerglass Festival, 2021

Songbird – an adaptation of Offenbach’s comedy La Périchole scored for New Orleans style jazz band. Sung in French and English. In 1920s New Orleans, performers Songbird and Piquillo are struggling to make ends meet. The conniving mayor, Don Andrès, sees an opportunity to both help Songbird out and to serve his own lascivious desires. But in doing so, he plunges the community into a series of dizzying, madcap escapades. In the end, love conquers all as Songbird and Piquillo outsmart Don Andrès. Add to this a fabulous, beautiful, and jazzy score and laissez les bon temps rouler!

Opera Workshop Performance - Dec. 3, 2024

Free | No ticket required
Music Hall
Tuesday, December 3, 2024, 7:30 pm

Opera Workshop presents Puccini’s magnificent and moving opera Suor Angelica. Typically, our Opera Workshop performance consists of a group of opera scenes. This term, we decided to shake things up and do a complete work. Suor Angelica is the story of a young woman who has been banished to a convent for having an illegitimate child. Seven years later, Angelica’s stern aunt visits her at the convent with life-changing news. What might that be? Well, you’ll just have to come to the performance to find out what happens. All we can say is that watching Suor Angelica is a transformational experience, with its gorgeous score and compelling storyline. Suor Angelica will be performed with piano accompaniment.

A Little Night Music - March 14-March 16, 2025

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Shannon Hall
Wisconsin Union Theater

March 14 at 7:30 pm
March 15 at 7:30 pm
March 16 at 2 pm

Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, A Little Night Music, is set in early 20th-century Sweden on the longest night of the year. Sondheim’s ravishing score, featuring his best-known song, “Send in the Clowns,” is entirely written in ¾ time.

The story explores the tangled web of affairs centered around actress, Desirée Armfeldt, and the men who love her: a lawyer named Fredrik Egerman and Carl-Magnus Malcolm, a military officer. When the traveling actress performs in Fredrik’s town, the estranged lovers’ passion rekindles. This strikes a flurry of jealousy and suspicion between Desirée; Fredrik; Fredrik’s wife, Anne; Desirée’s current lover Carl-Magnus; and the Carl-Magnus’ wife, Charlotte. Both men – as well as their jealous wives – agree to join Desirée and her family for a weekend at Desirée’s mother’s country estate.

In the perpetual twilight of the Nordic summer, lovers waltz in and out of each other’s lives and arms during a weekend romp filled with possibility, second chances, and endless surprises.

Opera Workshop Performance - April 15, 2025

Free | No ticket required
Music Hall
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 7:30 pm

About

Since 2015, UW–Madison’s University Opera has national attention as the recipient of 10 National Opera Association Production Awards and five awards from The American Prize.

On our mainstage each year, we present two fully staged operas with the UW–Madison Symphony Orchestra. In recent seasons, repertoire has included Albert Herring, La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, Transformations, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Into the Woods, Così fan tutte, Two Remain (Out of Darkness), Sweeney Todd, What’s Past is Prologue: The Unfinished American Conversation, The Turn of the Screw, La bohème, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Die Zauberflöte, A Kurt Weill Cabaret, Don Giovanni, and I Wish It So: Marc Blitzstein – The Man in His Music.

In addition to presenting works from the standard repertory, University Opera is dedicated to presenting new operas as well as works representing diverse composers and topics. In 2023, we collaborated with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in performing excerpts from Bill Banfield’s Edmonia (about Edmonia Lewis, a 19^th century African American sculptor) as well as a reading of Everlasting Faint a new opera by Scott Gendel and Sandra Flores-Strand. In September 2024, we will be workshopping La Ballonniste, a new opera by Lisa Bielawa and Claire Solomon, and presenting a program of sung excerpts.

In addition to mainstage presentations, we offer Opera Workshop, a course dedicated to the study of staging skills and repertoire, culminating each semester in performances of opera and musical theater scenes and one-act pieces. We also offer Acting for Singers, a two-semester sequence focusing on acting techniques specific to the operatic and musical theater stage. UW–Madison students also have the opportunity to perform around the state for outreach programs in schools and arts centers.

University Opera frequently hosts prestigious guest artists in concerts and master classes. Recent guests include Renée Fleming, Amanda Majeski, Karen Slack, Brenda Rae, Gary Thor Wedow, Daniel Belcher, Nathaniel Stampley, Brenda Harris, Ben Heppner, Dawn Upshaw, and Barbara Bonney.

Faculty

David Ronis

Karen K. Bishop Director of University Opera

ronis@wisc.edu
608.263.1932
Bio

Mimmi Fulmer

Professor of Voice and Opera

mkfulmer@wisc.edu
608.263.1882
Bio

Thomas Kasdorf

Lecturer of Vocal Coaching

tkasdorf@wisc.edu

Oriol Sans

Associate Professor, Director of Orchestral Activities

osans@wisc.edu
608.262.0249
Bio

Support University Opera

University Opera’s season is made possible by the support of alumni, friends, and community organizations. Due to the significant costs of producing opera, the university can fund only a small fraction of our budget. Generous donors have helped underwrite productions and support students who would not otherwise have been able to attend UW–Madison.

DONATE HERE

Program Endowment

We are deeply grateful for the assistance of The Karen K. Bishop Fund for Voice and Opera, The Ann Crow Fund for Voice and Opera, and to The Dara Elizabeth Welty Fund for helping make a high-quality season available to our students and audiences. Our goal is an endowed annual operating fund to provide infrastructure for recruiting, training, and performance opportunities to our singers.

We welcome your inquiries about becoming part of our family of donors. To find out more, please contact Rebekah Sherman at the University of Wisconsin Foundation at 608.572.2077 or at Rebekah.Sherman@supportuw.org.

The Karen K. Bishop Fund for Voice and Opera

The friends and family of Karen K. Bishop, utilizing the generous opportunity of the Morgridge Match program, endowed an opera director professorship in her name following her untimely death in January of 2015. A proud alumna of the School of Music, as well as an active scholar, performer and philanthropist, Dr. Bishop was a devoted supporter of the Opera program from which she received her D.M.A. degree in 2011.

Karen K. Bishop

With the success of the professorship, Karen’s husband, Dr. Charles W. Bishop, called for the creation of a committee for advancement work to ensure the success of the voice and opera program for years to come. The committee, which consists of Charles Bishop, members of the School of Music faculty and staff as well as friends and supporters from the larger Madison community, has identified four critical needs for the opera program:

1. An additional endowed professorship in voice to ensure that the School of Music can attract and retain the highest caliber of faculty to support its student performers.

2. Student financial support to provide fellowships, teaching assistantships, scholarships and awards for graduate and undergraduate students in order to recruit best quality talent around the country and the world, making UW-Madison one of the best schools in the country for voice and opera studies.

3. Underwriting support for opera productions to provide the highest quality musical and dramatic experiences for our students and audiences.

4. Funding to renovate the Opera Program’s historic Carol Rennebohm Auditorium in Music Hall to provide professional experiences for our students.

You can join in strengthening the UW-Madison opera program by giving at the following levels of support. Donors who make gifts to this fund will be recognized in ongoing opera programs.

Levels of support for the Karen K. Bishop Fund for Voice and Opera, with examples of impact to the program.

The Chorus
$100-$999
Awards for students for travel/summer program; production costs

The Impresario
$1,000-$4,999
Awards for voice/opera students; production costs.

The Director
$5,000-$9,999
Scholarships and awards for students; production costs.

The Prima Donna
$10,000-$24,999
Support for scholarships, awards, fellowships and teaching assistants.

The Producer Circle
$25,000-$49,999
Underwriters for one or more University Opera productions; fellowships; scholarships.

The Bishop Circle
$50,000 or more
Endow portions of the voice and opera program, including professorships, scholarships and fellowships.

Give online now!

Or, if you prefer, make a check payable to University of Wisconsin Foundation and note “Bishop Fund for Voice and Opera” in the memo line. Please mail your check to University of Wisconsin Foundation, US Bank Lockbox, Box 78807, Milwaukee, WI 53278-0807.

Learn More About Giving

For more information about giving opportunities, contact Rebekah Sherman at 608.572.2077 or at rebekah.sherman@supportuw.org

Mead Witter School of Music