Drury University Department of Music

OPERA

The Drury Opera Workshop provides a training ground for students to experience the world of opera. This includes the study of vocal development, stage craft, acting and technical skills, culminating in an operatic experience which is meaningful and lasting. Each year Drury Opera invites students throughout the university to audition.

Through the years, the opera program has traveled to area universities and schools. The world premier of an opera based on the life of Missouri’s renowned artist, Thomas Hart Benton, was critically appraised and received. This production, One Among the Hopeful Souls, was written and composed by Drury faculty and presented in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol Building and also in the Nelson Art Museum in Kansas City.

In 2000, the composer of The Face on the Barroom Floor, Henry Mollicone, was on the Drury campus as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. This opera was performed by the opera workshop, and the production was entered into the National Opera Association Competition. Drury Opera received the 1st Place Award at the National Convention in New York City.

Productions through the years have included: The Impresario, Down in the Valley, The Lowland Sea, Cavalleria Rusticana, Trial by Jury, Hand of Bridge, Sweet Betsy from Pike, La Serva Padrona, La Pizza con Funghi and Slow Dusk.

2009 Drury Opera Gilbert & Sullivan Video Excerpts