This month, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features a guest post on the history of Wheaton College’s opera program from Stephanie Chiodras, a 2019 graduate of the Wheaton College Conservatory Voice Program. Stephanie currently serves as the Archives & Museum Coordinator and continues to perform professionally in Wheaton and in the Chicagoland area.

Every year, the Wheaton College Conservatory Voice Department provides masterful performances of an opera or musical as a requirement for their degree. Students perform a full Mainstage Opera (MUEP 357) every other year, and a musical, or double-bill of single-acts or smaller works for the years in between. The ensemble is cast late in the Spring semester, and incoming freshmen can audition for chorus parts upon their arrival in the fall. The students rehearse all through the Fall Semester with a performance in January, after which Opera Workshop or Opera Musical Theater (MUEP 356) begins with a performance near finals week of Spring Semester.

The Opera Workshop allows singers to delve deeper into the mechanics of performing an operatic role on stage, by performing a collection of scenes rather than full works. Many voice students will go on to perform in professional operas and operettas, so this scene work provides them with the skills needed to prepare for an operatic role. This preparation includes detailed language and diction work, acting and movement exercises, and character discussions. And, as the February 20, 1970 Wheaton Record described, “The Opera Workshop is designed to give performers and audience an appreciation for opera.”

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