Opera Theatre produces opera in a fresh and very American style: sophisticated and musically impeccable productions sung by outstanding young artists in an intimate, 987 - seat theater. The company offers a mix of familiar and unconventional repertory, all performed in English and accompanied by members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
 
Loretto-Hilton Center
 
Visitors and distinguished members of the music press come to St. Louis each year from all over the U.S. and abroad; OTSL's five week festival season is regularly reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times (London), the Chicago Tribune, and many others.
Significant Recognition by the Ford Foundation
 
In 2000 Opera Theatre was chosen by the Ford Foundation as one of only two US opera companies among 28 "exemplary arts organizations" to receive major matching grants. Based on the quality of our productions and management, the range of our education and young artist programs, and our visions for the future, OTSL received $1.5 million (the largest gift in company history), to be matched 4 to 1 over the next five years.
 
The Theater
 
Since 1976 OTSL's artistic home has been the 987-seat Loretto-Hilton Center on the campus of Webster University, whose garden setting is ideal for a spring festival season. The theater's small scale and thrust stage give performances a unique dramatic impact (94% of its seats are closer to center stage than the front row at the Metropolitan Opera). Ticket demand from St. Louisans and out-of-town visitors -- who came from 39 states and 9 foreign countries in 2000 -- ranges from 93% of capacity to well over 100%; overall attendance in 2000 reached 95%.
 
World and American Premieres
 
Committed from the outset to the work of contemporary composers, OTSL in 25 seasons has presented fifteen world premieres (all but one commissioned by the company) and nineteen American premieres.
 
An Antidote to Elitism
 
"There is an enthusiastic, hospitable, typically American friendliness about the whole enterprise," said the London Telegraph; indeed, its welcoming atmosphere is one of the company's unique characteristics. Everyone in the audience is always welcome to meet the artists in the Pavilion after performances.
 
Landmarks in OTSL's History
 

Opera Theatre was founded in the spring of 1976 by Richard Gaddes, with a small group of opera-lovers who were determined to bring festival-quality opera to the St. Louis area. With a budget of $135,000 they presented a 13-performance season in English with a mixture of familiar and unconventional repertory sung by young Americans including Sheri Greenawald and Vinson Cole -- a style of production which continues to this day. Since 1985 the company has been led by general director Charles MacKay, with artistic director Colin Graham and music director Stephen Lord.

Highlights of the company's history include: the first-ever joint BBC/WNET telecast of Albert Herring; the first appearance by any U.S. opera company at the 1983 Edinburgh International Festival; and the Japanese premiere of Joruri in Tokyo, the first production of a Japanese opera in Japan by any American company.

The company returned to Tokyo in September 2001 to present the Japaneses premiere of Minoru's Miki's The Tale of Genji.

Well-known directors Graham Vick, Jonathan Miller, and Mark Lamos made U.S. operatic debuts with Opera Theatre, as did conductors Leonard Slatkin and Christopher Hogwood. OTSL productions have been career milestones for outstanding U.S. singers including Christine Brewer, Susan Graham, Dwayne Croft, and many others.
 
A Commitment to Young Singers
 
Since 1976 Opera Theatre has showcased young American singers, offering them the chance to develop new roles over long rehearsal periods under the wing of well-known coaches, conductors, directors and designers. Each year OTSL's audition team travels to cities across the U.S. to hear more than 600 aspiring singers.

The roster at the Metropolitan Opera invariably includes more than fifty OTSL "alumni".
 
Paul Bunyan
Photo by Ken Howard
 
Sylvia McNair made one of her first professional appearances in Beatrice and Benedict, then returned in succeeding seasons in The Magic Flute, Idomeneo, Alcina, and King Arthur.

Christine Brewer and Kallen Esperian first appeared in small roles in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (performed in the Apple Shed in Clarksville, Missouri).

Kallen Esperian sang the Cat in Paul Bunyan and Flora in La traviata before being featured as Micaela in Carmen and Mimi in La bohème -- which she then sang with Luciano Pavarotti all over the world.

Christine Brewer, who has recently been cheered at the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, had a small mainstage role in A Death in the Family in 1986, returning for Peter Grimes, Ariadne on Naxos, Don Giovanni, and Armida.
 
Sound Financial Management
 
Under the leadership of general director Charles MacKay, Opera Theatre combines extraordinary artistic achievement with fiscal soundness. Although the size of the theater limits box office income to 25% of the budget, the company has consistently produced work of the highest quality while never accumulating a deficit. OTSL's endowment assets have grown from $433,000 in 1985 to $12 million in 2000; its annual operating budget is just over $6 million.
 
An Attractive Performing Style
 
The style of Opera Theatre is appealing to the St. Louis community for a variety of reasons. Even unfamiliar repertory is compelling for the audience when it is sung in English in a small theater by versatile singing actors.
 
The Pavilion
 

The Pavilion -- the gathering place for both the audience and the entire company -- is a hospitable setting where opera goers picnic before performances and meet performers afterward.

Beyond the theater, the company reaches out across St. Louis with innovative school programs like Music!Words!Opera!, Opera Through the Looking Glass and Artists-in-Training, the unique partnership with the city school system designed to nurture high school vocal talent -- which has resulted in college scholarships for several recent graduates and places in OTSL's ensemble for two of them. The program was cited by the President's Committee on the Arts & Humanities as a national model program for at-risk youth.

While several U.S. companies offer summer festival seasons featuring young singers in a mixture of repertory, OTSL is outstanding for artistic quality, fiscal soundness, the percentage of new work in its repertory, and a commitment to diversity in its audience, its artists and its board. Moreover, the company has extended its apprentice programs for singers to include apprentices in all technical and administrative departments, a significant step in its determination to become a center for young professionals in all aspects of opera.
 
Music!Words!Opera!
Stix Early Childhood Center
Photo by Ken Howard