Opera Theater | Cleveland Institute of Music

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2024-25 season announcement coming soon!

Through the close cooperation of the CIM Voice and Opera faculty, students who wish to become professional singers receive integrated training designed to allow them to reach their highest potential as performers and gain a solid technique while sustaining healthy voice production throughout their careers.

By limiting the total number of voice/opera students to about 50, the program enables each student to have significant performance experience at an appropriate level.

The Opera Theater presents each year two fully staged productions and a costumed scenes program. Each production is open to all voice students, upon approval of their private instructor. Auditions are held for each production, and casting is determined collaboratively by the faculty in opera and voice. All major roles are double-cast, providing opportunity for both graduates and undergraduates to perform. Though this program, students are coached on blocking, staging, acting, character analysis and other skills essential to the art form.

CIM students regularly are selected for advanced summer training programs in the U.S. and abroad, and in opera apprenticeship positions in leading festival centers such as Aspen, Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood, Chautauqua, Central City and Brevard.

Alumni Spotlights

Andrew Manea

Andrew Manea

Lauded for his “Charming…robust baritone…” rising Romanian-American baritone Andrew Manea recently made his role debut as the Duke of Nottingham in Roberto Devereux with the San Francisco Opera. These performances “thrust him into the spotlight, solidifying his status as the next leading baritone of his generation…” (Opera Wire).

Highlights of recent seasons include Marcello in La bohème with Shreveport Opera, #7 in Transformations with the Merola Opera Program, and Escamillo in Carmen in Wuhan, China. With the College-Conservatory of Music at Cincinnati University, he has sung the Danilo in The Merry Widow, the Father in Hansel and Gretel and the Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen. On the concert stage, he made his Schwabacher Recital debut with esteemed pianist Warren Jones.

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Liz Tredent

Liz Tredent

Italian-American soprano Elizabeth Tredent has entranced critics and audiences alike with her “robust, beautiful” and “richly colored” voice. Tredent’s affinity for the Italian repertoire led to her Sarasota Opera debut as princess Fiora in Montemezzi's L’amore dei tre re in 2017. Immediately following her debut, Ms. Tredent was invited to return to Sarasota Opera as Violetta in her first Verdi role, a role which she later reprised in concert in England. Ms. Tredent’s close relationship with Sarasota Opera also led to her return in the title roles of a double bill of Donizetti’s Rita and Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna in 2019.

Upon relocating to Germany, Ms. Tredent made her European debut in 2019 with Theater Kiel in the season premiere and inaugural performance of the new General Music Director, Benjamin Reiners, singing the role of Juliette in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. While a number of debuts in 2020 and 2021 were canceled, due to COVID-19, including her debut as Erste Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Ms. Tredent jumped in at Theater Kiel for multiple performances of Wittenbrink’s Sekretärinnen and Webber’s Sunset Boulevard in 2022.

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Armando Contreras

Armando Contreras

Praised for “the easy caramel syrup of his voice” (Opera Today), Mexican-American baritone Armando Contreras is quickly becoming a standout in the world of opera. In 2023, Mr. Contreras began the year singing the role of Cesar Chavez in the workshop of Dolores with West Edge Opera. He later performed his fifth Dandini in Kentucky Opera’s production of La cenerentola. He returned to Salt Marsh Opera for the third time, performing the role of Papageno in their production of The Magic Flute. This summer, Armando performed the leading role of Lt. Gonzalez in the stage premiere of Aleksandra Vrebalov and Debroah Breevort’s The Knock. Upcoming engagements include Older Thompson in Glory Denied with Art Song Colorado. Baritone soloist with Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Opera Fort Collins and Salt Marsh Opera.

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From the Vault

Artist chat with Tom Cipullo

Artist Chat with Tom Cipullo