| The Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre Young Artist Program traces its beginnings to the summer of 2002, and a production of Smetana’s opera, The Bartered Bride. That summer Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre's Artistic Director Daniel Kleinknecht and stage director Gerald Dolter, a professor of music at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX, brought together resources of Cedar Rapids Opera and Texas Tech Music Theatre. A nine-member team of his music theatre students traveled from Texas Tech to participate in the production. The venture was a success, and plans were made to build upon the idea of recruiting additional young artists from eastern Iowa.
In the summer of 2003, Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre offered Verdi’s monumental opera, Otello. Dolter and eighteen Texas Tech students came to Cedar Rapids to augment the large chorus. Five students from eastern Iowa colleges and universities also participated. Singing in the chorus of the opera kept the students busy in the evening hours. During the daytime, an opera history class was taught, and the students were given opportunities to prepare scenes of operas and musical theatre. These scenes were presented in Iowa City, and the money raised was contributed to Iowa City's restoration of Englert Theatre.
The program took on more of an educational purpose in January of 2004. Students from Texas Tech, the University of Iowa, Luther College and other colleges performed Sid, The Serpent Who Wanted To Sing at local Cedar Rapids schools. The students also augmented the chorus of the mainstage opera, Verdi’s La Traviata. That year, the company made plans to recruit and prepare students for a new venture—a fully staged production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Pirates of Penzance. The production was cast entirely of college-age students recruited from colleges in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Texas, and was presented on the lawn of Brucemore Mansion in Cedar Rapids. Some outstanding Pirates cast members subsequently made their professional debuts in Cedar Rapids, with roles in Verdi’s opera Falstaff in January 2005 and in Bizet’s famed Carmen in June of 2005.
Since that time, the program has continued to put on a traveling show at local schools in January and mount a full-scale production in the summer, in addition to supplementing the chorus of the mainstage productions in both January and June. Recent productions have included:
Why Dinosaurs Don't Smoke
Jack and the Beanstalk
Into the Woods
Goldilocks
The Night Harry Stopped Smoking
Little Red’s Most Unusual Day
The Gondoliers
In addition to stage training and opportunities the apprentice artists have received, Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre has also offered the Young Artists vocal master classes taught by Karin Brunssen (voice faculty member at Northwestern University), Bodo Igesz (stage director), Jon Spong (accompanist for Sherrill Milnes and opera coach), Gary Race (opera director at the University of Iowa), Gerald Dolter (music theatre director at Texas Tech University) and Katherine Goeldner (mezzo soprano of Europe and the New York Metropolitan Opera) and movement classes (taught by Suki Morrissey).
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