Opera Theater of Pittsburgh

Opera Theater of Pittsburgh is an American opera company based in Pittsburgh's university and museum district. Opera Theater of Pittsburgh performs at The Twentieth Century Club in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and at non-traditional venues around the city.

Opera Theater of Pittsburgh (OTP) was established in 1978 by the noted opera star Mildred Miller Posvar and Helen Knox. Its current artistic director, Jonathan Eaton, joined the company in 1999.

In 2012, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh reinvented itself as a summer festival presenting staged operas, musicals, recitals, and cabaret.

Past initiatives have included a Fusion Festival of American-Asian works at the Andy Warhol Museum which included the world premiere of RedDust, a multi-media opera by Mathew Rosenblum and The Sound of a Voice by Philip Glass and David Henry Hwang. Other major initiatives have included the Pittsburgh Ring, two complete cycles of Wagner's great operas in collaboration with Long Beach Opera using Jonathan Dove's reorchestration. Recent American operas include Just Above My Head, a world premiere jazz opera by Pittsburgher Nathan Davis. Operatic versions of classics American plays have included Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke, William Bolcom's A View From the Bridge and Regina, an operatic version of The Little Foxes by Marc Blitzstein.

Aside from forays in the traditional repertory, OTP has sought to present a number of modern masterpieces which are not regularly included on standard programs: Lost in the Stars, The Emperor of Atlantis, Bluebeard's Castle, Brundibar, Der Jasager, and the English language premiere of Weill's Die Bürgschaft.

Most recently it has initiated a "Salon Series" devoted to shorter works performed in unusual spaces, such as Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, performed in a church converted into an art gallery; Bizet's Djamileh, presented in a Persian Carpet Emporium; Thomas Pasatieri's La Divina, and Salieri's Prima la Musica, e Poi le Parole, performed in Pittsburgh's own version of the Petit Trianon Palace.

Jonathan Eaton, Opera Theater's current General and Artistic director, joined the company in 1999. An internationally renowned stage director, Eaton continues Opera Theater's mission.

Opera Theater annually hosts the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition in honor of its founder, Mildred Miller Posvar. The event, held in Pittsburgh, is a search for America's best singers. Young professionals aged 18–35 are eligible to compete for cash prizes and solo roles in the company's SummerFest. Past competition winners include Juan José de Leon, Andrey Nemzer, and Elizabeth Baldwin.

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