Opera

About opera at PLU

PLU Opera offers two productions per academic year – a complete main stage opera with orchestra and an opera scenes program with piano in alternating semesters. Members participate in all facets of production, including set and costume design, staging and performance. The full productions are planned in a three-year cycle that includes early music, standard repertoire, and 20th/21st century.

Recent productions have included Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Handel’s Semele, Weill’s Street Scene, Britten’s Albert Herring, Handel’s Alcina, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, a world premiere production of Fiery Jade – Cai Yan by Gregory Youtz and Zhang Er, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, Handel’s Julius Caesar, Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen.

PLU Opera also offers a Summer Opera Workshop every summer which is open to high school, college, and community singers in which students engage in acting and singing masterclasses. The workshop culminates in the performance of a full production with piano and a scenes performance.

Friday-Saturday, November 21-22, 2025 at 7:30pm

Location: Eastvold Auditorium, Karen Hille Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Step into the sparkling world of this all-Mozart showcase as PLU Opera brings to life iconic scenes from his greatest operas, including The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Così fan tutte, and more.

Barry Johnson directs.

Performances will be livestreamed via the following link: PLU | ARTS

Friday-Saturday, May 8-9 at 7:30pm and Sunday, May 10, 2026 at 2pm

Location: Eastvold Auditorium, Karen Hille Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Margaret Johnson, the wife of an American businessman, is touring the Tuscan countryside with her daughter, Clara. While sightseeing, Clara – a beautiful, surprisingly childish young woman – loses her hat in a sudden gust. As if guided by an unseen hand, the hat lands at the feet of Fabrizio Naccarelli, a handsome Florentine, who returns it to Clara. This brief episode, charged with coincidence and fate, sparks an immediate and intense romance between Clara and Fabrizio. Margaret, extremely protective of her daughter, attempts to keep Clara and Fabrizio apart. But as events unfold, a secret is revealed: in addition to the cultural differences between the young lovers, Clara is not quite all that she appears. Unable to suppress the truth about her daughter, Margaret is forced to reconsider not only Clara’s future, but her own hopes as well.

Jim Brown, director; Amy Boers, music director in a collaboration with PLU Theatre and Dance and PLU Opera.

General Public $16 / Seniors (60+), Military, Alumni, PLU Faculty and Staff (limit 2) $12 / Immediate family of performs, 18 and under and under $8.
Tickets can be purchased online via the link below.