With a rich, storied 77-year history, it’s impossible to tell the full story of Tulsa’s love affair with opera in just a few pages. Enjoy these highlights, and if you’re hungry for more, be sure to check out our Throwback Thursday posts on social media or stop by the offices to peruse a copy of the fascinating Tulsa Opera Chronicles in our Filstrup Hall.
“We didn’t have sewers, street paving, parks or sidewalks, and not much of a water system, but these facilities were luxuries and could wait, whereas an opera house loomed as a necessity.”
— L.J. Martin, Tulsa’s 11th mayor
Gounod's Faust, Tulsa's first documented opera, is performed at the Epperson Opera House on the second floor of the Williamson Brothers store, at what is now the intersection of Main and Archer.
The Grand Opera House opens on 2nd Street between Boston and Cincinnati with a comic opera, The Chaperones.
Tulsa Commercial Club founder L.J. Martin helps open Convention Hall, featuring appearances by great stars of the day like soprano Mary Garden and bass Feodor Chaliapin, and the world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso.
Tulsa is chosen as one of the coveted tour stops for the highly-acclaimed new American opera, The King's Henchman, by Deems Taylor and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The Great Depression fails to dampen Tulsa's enthusiasm for opera. Oklahoma's first outdoor opera, Aïda, is a community effort produced at Skelly Field, boasting an opening night crowd that remains the largest recorded audience for an opera in the state's history.
At the encouragement of prominent local piano teacher Bess Gowans, Tulsa native Ione Sassano and her husband Ralph Sassano form the Tulsa Opera Club and produce Verdi's La traviata at Central High School's South Auditorium.
The Tulsa Opera Club changes its name to Tulsa Opera, Inc. Maud Lorton Meyers, a co-owner of the Tulsa World and founding Tulsa Opera Board Member, purchases the house at 1610 S. Boulder to serve as company headquarters, where the offices stand to this day.
For the first time, TO imports major stars for their production of Madama Butterfly, achieving national prominence. New York stage director Anthony Stivanello becomes a TO fixture for the following 20 years. Ralph Sassano resigns as General Manager, and Charles Ellis replaces him with the title Production Coordinator.
The Guild of Tulsa Opera is formed to support the opera through education and fundraising.
Tulsa Opera continues its rise as a producer of grand opera with an all-star cast for Il trovatore, starring Jussi Björling and Leonard Warren, possibly the greatest tenor and baritone of the time. Jeannette Turner takes leadership of the company as Manager and Executive Director.
The Guild of Tulsa Opera establishes a children's opera workshop, setting a precedent for educational programming at Tulsa Opera that remains a cornerstone of its mission today.
Laven Sowell makes his debut as chorusmaster with Turandot, a position he would hold until 1994.
The great American soprano Beverly Sills makes her Tulsa Opera debut in the title roll of La traviata.
Ed Purrington, formerly of Santa Fe Opera, is tagged to assume the role of General Manager. Construction is completed on the new Tulsa Opera building on the original site. Metropolitan Opera star, tenor William Lewis, a graduate of Will Rogers High School, who sang a small role in the company's very first production, returns in the leading role of Cavaradossi in Tosca
Tulsa Opera performs its first production in the brand new Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Aïda, starring Gilda Cruz-Romo, Mignon Dunn, Ermanno Mauro, Michael Devlin, and John Macurdy. Conductor Emerson Buckley, Stage Director Bliss Hebert, Choreographer Lar Lubovitch, Costume Design Suzanne Mess, Lighting Design Neil Peter Jampolis, Chorus Master Laven Sowell; Onstage band from Edison High School, Edward Gibble Director.
Tulsa Opera presents the first complete Wagner opera to be produced in Oklahome: Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), with bass-baritone Simon Estes making his role debut as Wotan, leading to his Metropolitan Opera debut in the same role and subsequent rise to stardom.
Superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti comes to Tulsa for a one-night-only fundraising concert in Chapman Music Hall.
Tulsa Opera presents the Oklahoma premiere of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, starring Simon Estes and Sarah Reese.
Stage Director and impresario Bernard Uzan succeeds Ed Purrington as General Manager. After one year, he resigns and is replaced by Myrna Smart Ruffner. Nicholas Muni is named Artistic Director. The Tulsa Opera Young Artists Program is formed.
Tulsa native and international soprano star Linda Roark-Strummer returns to the Tulsa Opera stage (having made her debut as a chorister twenty years prior) in the starring role of Minnie in Puccini's La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West).
Conductor Carol I. Crawford is appointed General Director, broadening the repertoire with more American opera and casting many "stars of tomorrow," including leading mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and native Oklahome star soprano Sarah Coburn.
The Tulsa Youth Opera, the crown jewel of Tulsa Opera's educational programs, is established.
Tulsa Opera collaborates with Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Skylight Opera Theatre to produce Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, which premieres in Tulsa in 2005.
Kostis Protopapas, formerly the comapny's chorus master and associate conductor, takes the helm as Artistic Director.
In 2016, composer Tobias Picker becomes Artistic Director of Tulsa Opera.
Ken McConnell is named General Director and CEO. The Stars Align concert features Metropolitan Opera star mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, Tulsa native and star soprano Sarah Coburn, and Metropolitan Opera tenors David Portillo, and Aaron Blake.
Baritone Lucia Lucas stars in the title role of Don Giovanni, and Tulsa Opera becomes the first major American opera company to feature a transgender woman in a leading role.
COVID-19 shutters the world stage. Tulsa Opera responds with Staying Alive, a YouTube series featuring arias recorded by opera singers and pianists from their homes via Zoom. In the fall, TO mounts the nation's first live opera since the shutdown: a baseball-themed Rigoletto performed at ONEOK Field for a socially-distanced audience.
Tulsa Opera produces Greenwood Overcomes, a concert featuring works exclusively by living Black composers, to commemorate the hundred-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The four newly-commissioned pieces are the first in Tulsa Opera History.
Aaron Beck, the company's longtime Education Director and Artistic Administrator, is first appointed Artistic Director, and in 2023 assumes the role of Interim General Director when McConnell resigns. Tulsa Opera becomes the first opera company to partner with the Songs by Heart Foundation to bring therapeutic music programming to people living with Alzheimer's and dementia.
Lori Decter Wright, an operatic soprano, nonprofit executive director, former Tulsa Opera Board member, and City Councilor, takes the helm as General Director and CEO. Despite the cancellation of two mainstage productions, Tulsa Opera finishes the 2023-24 season with sold-out performances of The Medium, Opera Fizz, and Opera Rocks the Country.
Tulsa Opera brings superstar soprano Renée Fleming and her multimedia Voices of Nature: The Anthropocene concert to the stage of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center and sells out her Music and the Mind lecture at the Schusterman Center at OU-Tulsa.