Opera Theater

Patricia Miller

Ensemble Director: Prof. Patricia Miller

The Mason Opera Theater and Workshop provides serious vocal performance students with in-depth study and performance of operas from Baroque to modern, with opera scenes and productions each semester. The Opera Theater presents two to three productions annually.

Past productions have included Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea, Purcell’s Dido & Aeneus, Puccini’s La Bohème and Gianni Schicchi, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte and one-act operas including Barber’s A Hand of Bridge and Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief.

Mason’s vocal performance graduates are currently singing with the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Kansas City, Colorado (Rocky Mountain), Alaska, Bay Shore, and New England Conservatory Opera Companies.

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Meet Our Team

Patricia Miller

Patricia Miller

Patricia Miller is director of Vocal Studies and an internationally acclaimed operatic and concert mezzo-soprano. She is also a highly-respected voice teacher and Music Educator. A University Professor, artist-teacher and master class clinician, her talent and commitment to opera education has taken her all over the world. She also serves on the Opera Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. Read her full bio.

Joseph Walsh

Joseph Walsh

Joseph Walsh, the Opera Vocal Accompanying Coach, has three decades of experience in preparing, presenting and conducting opera and musical theater in Virginia, across the U.S. and internationally. He is a conductor admired for his ability to combine dramatic flair and theatrical excitement with sensitivity, detail and a keen sense of dramatic pacing. Walsh was music director for The Pirates of Penzance at Riverside Dinner Theater and Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush, George, Don’t Do That! and Master Class, all at Alexandria, Virginia’s Metro Stage. Read his full bio.

Alumna Crystal Golden: A Golden Voice

There is a very simple reason why Crystal Golden Chose to Study Voice at Mason

Performances

In the Spring of 2021, Mason Opera Theater presented an evening of works featuring Dream Lovers by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Act II of Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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In 2016, Mason Opera produced "Gianni Schicchi" by Puccini at the Harris Theatre.
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Mason Opera performs two student productions a year.
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Pauline Viardot's opera "Cendrillon." Opera Theater later reprised the theme by presenting Giacomo Rossini’s "La Cenerentola."