Steven Harris
Internationally renowned soprano Lisette Oropesa is returning to Louisiana State University for a special Masterworks Performance this month.
When Louisiana State University comes to mind, it does so in a frenzy of purple and gold, touchdowns and tigerstripes. And as far as academics go, the university is most often recognized for its students’ achievements within its massive engineering, agriculture, and science programs. From its classrooms also come innovative artists, award-winning authors, political leaders, groundbreaking journalists. And an Arts & Entertainment Editor or two.
But according to the international online publication OperaWire, the University can also claim as its own one of the year’s most impressive opera singers.
Lisette Oropesa, named number one in the publication’s “Singers who had a year to remember” ranking, has spent the past thirteen years traveling the world as one of the most celebrated sopranos of her generation. She'll return to Baton Rouge on January 25 for A Starry Night, alongside fellow LSU alumni Paul Groves and Brandon Hendrickson and the LSU Symphony Orchestra at the Union Theater.
A 2005 graduate of the LSU School of Music, Oropesa said that her experience in the program was indispensable to her career—particularly her voice training under Robert Grayson, who was the leading tenor at the New York City Opera for over a decade before teaching at LSU for over thirty years.
Immediately after her graduation, Oropesa won the Met Opera National Council Auditions and moved to New York City to begin training in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. “I grew up in Baton Rouge,” she said. “It’s home, and it’s where I got my foundation. But after the initial culture shock of New York—that’s where I came of age. That’s where I became a woman.”
The most difficult part of the transition, career-wise, she said, was finding a new voice teacher. “I went through several before I settled on one,” she said. “Even today, I still feel very connected to Bob [Grayson], and I still study with him on occasion. Even after all these years, he’s the one who has known my voice the longest.”
After completing the Lindemann Program, Oropesa went on to perform in hundreds of roles all over the world and has become renowned for her skill in lyric coloratura, or elaborate ornamentation of melodies, with an otherworldly range—making her impressively suited for bel canto repertoire.
Just over the past year, she starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s Hansel and Gretel, opened a new production of Orfeo ed Euridice at the LA Opera, and achieved her first encore at the Teatro Real Madrid’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor, which was streamed worldwide to thousands of audiences. She also made her debut in the rarely performed Rossini production Adina, and was featured in a Verdi Gala. She finished the year opening a new production of Les Huguenots at the Opéra de Paris, which was featured in cinema. And finally, this year she also released her second studio album Aux filles du desert.
Even if you don’t follow the international opera cycles, Louisiana residents may recognize Oropesa from her performances closer to home—starring in productions like New Orleans Opera’s Marriage of Figaro, Opera Louisiane’s Drama Queens, and the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks Performance.
Oropesa’s favorite role to play, though? Verdi’s La Traviata. “It’s a very special role to me—it’s the kind of role every soprano dreams of,” she said. “My mother [another LSU alumna] was an opera singer, and she sang it a lot.” So far, she has had the opportunity to perform it only once, but says that this year she’s already lined up to star as Violetta at the Teatro Massimo in September.
[Watch Lisette Oropesia perform “Sempre libera” from La Traviata, here.]
Though she’s taught several masterclasses with the School of Music, and performed at the school on occasion, she said that the January performance at the LSU Union Theater this will be the first time she gets to perform with the university’s Symphony Orchestra.
“I’m so excited to just bring everything together for this incredible evening of music,” noting her excitement at performing with fellow alum, as well as with the esteemed Metropolitan Opera conductor Joesph Colaneri. “It’s less of a homecoming than a presentation of what we’ve gone out and done. Paul and Brandon and I, we’ve all started here—Paul even sang with my Mom—and now we all have these amazing careers.”
A Starry Night will include performances of masterworks by Wagner, Faust, Puccini, and—yes—Verdi’s La Traviata.
For more information about Lisette Oropesa, visit lisetteoropesa.com. To purchase tickets to A Starry Night, visit lsu.edu/cmda/events.
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