Celebrating three-quarters of a century as one of the nation’s premier university programs to fuse operatic training with musical theater performance, Oklahoma City University will present its 75th Anniversary Opera Gala on Nov. 20-22 in the Kirkpatrick Auditorium.
The production celebrates the milestone anniversary of OCU’s Oklahoma Opera and Music Theater Company. It features a curated sampler of some of the most celebrated operas in history. The program highlights three soprano roles across acts from Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and Giacomo Puccini’s “La Rondine.”
Each act centers on a different student soprano portraying legendary heroines — Violetta, Lucia and Magda — living in the margin between hope and tragedy. Serving as an on-stage host, director David Herendeen will bridge cast transitions from a fireside setup, sharing the dramatic, real-life controversial histories of the stories and composers themselves.
“Verdi, Donizetti and Puccini were the rock stars of their era,” Herendeen said. “Opera was the original blockbuster entertainment. It delivered the chills, the emotions and the gargantuan spectacle. The structural storytelling, the high drama, and even modern cinematic soundscapes all trace back to this operatic DNA. With this gala, we want to show audiences that they already know and love opera because it’s woven into the entertainment we consume today.”
Herendeen said the selections will showcase OCU’s dual-genre philosophy, which equips performers with the vocal stamina of traditional opera alongside the storytelling chops of musical theater. This training model has launched high-profile alumni such as Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O’Hara, Leona Mitchell and current “Phantom of the Opera” lead Isaiah Bailey. Internationally acclaimed soprano Sarah Coburn has returned to OCU this fall as resident artist and is working with emerging sopranos as they take on the vocal and dramatic challenges of the Opera Gala roles.
“Our blend of opera and musical theater creates a diversity of skill sets that makes our students especially versatile,” Herendeen added. “Having an artist like Sarah Coburn come home to mentor our performers as they take on these formidable roles gives our students a direct touchpoint to the professional world.”
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Nov. 20 and 21, and 2 p.m. Nov. 22. Tickets are available online at okcu.edu/tickets or by calling 405-208-5227.
