The Bloomington Area Arts Council (BAAC) and the Jacobs School of Music announce "Opera Tease," a collaborative, two-day educational program for middle school and high school students, with a focus on musical and production aspects of opera. Opera Tease is the brainchild of BAAC employee Bernie Oakley. A former opera singer who debuted at the Detroit Opera Theatre and performed a European tour of Porgy and Bess, her motivation behind the program was to involve young high school students and others in opera.

An expansive new production of W. A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, a co-production of Indiana University Opera Theater and The Atlanta Opera, will be premiered Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. at the Musical Arts Center in Bloomington. Additional performances in Bloomington are Nov. 14, 20 and 21. This completely new production, guest stage directed by Tomer Zvulun and guest conducted by Mark Gibson, with sets and costumes designed by Jacobs School of Music Professor C. David Higgins, is "not your average Magic Flute," said Higgins.

Indiana University Opera Theater will video-stream its second production of the season, Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod, live from the Musical Arts Center on Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31 at 8 p.m. The stream may be accessed from IU Music Live! at http://www.music.indiana.edu/iumusiclive.

Indiana University Opera Theater continues its 2009-10 season with the passionate, timeless Roméo et Juliette, opening Oct. 23 at the Musical Arts Center. The company has produced this work only twice before, in 1966 and in 2005.

Annunciation + Visitation, a unique musical performance exploring two vastly different expressions of female sexuality, stretches the boundaries of what defines opera.

IU Opera and Ballet Theater launches its full 2009-2010 season of six operas and three ballet productions with Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, which opens on Sept. 25. The diverse season includes new productions of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Puccini's La Rondine (The Swallow), Bernstein's dynamic West Side Story, a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes and more.

The Indiana University Opera Theater's collegiate premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza (by Adam Guettel) will be guest conducted by Broadway veteran Dan Riddle, the associate conductor of the original hit Broadway show. Tickets are on sale now at Bloomington's Musical Arts Center for the July 31 and Aug. 1, 7 and 8 performances.

The Indiana University Opera Theater's collegiate premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza (by Adam Guettel) will be guest conducted by Broadway veteran Dan Riddle, the associate conductor of the original hit Broadway show. Tickets are on sale now at Bloomington's Musical Arts Center for the July 31 and Aug. 1, 7 and 8 performances.

Comedy, tragedy, magic, madness, jealousy, deceit and fantasy all will take center stage at IU Bloomington's Musical Arts Center during Indiana University Opera and Ballet Theater's 2009-2010 season. Among the highlights will be Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, in celebration of the recent unprecedented gift from the family of Leonard Bernstein that contains the contents of his Fairfield, Conn., composing studio, and the history of Bernstein's long association with the Jacobs School.

The Most Happy Fella has been called musical theater, an operetta and a good old-fashioned opera. When it debuted in 1956, The New York Daily Mirror called it "a masterpiece of our era."

In a perfect complement to ArtsWeek 2009's "Politics and the Arts" theme, the political power struggles of ancient Egypt -- and the passionate love affair between the iconic figures Cleopatra and Cesare -- will come to life on the stage of Indiana University's Musical Arts Center when the Jacobs School of Music stages Giulio Cesare, one of George Frideric Handel's most popular operas.

In a perfect complement to ArtsWeek 2009's "Politics and the Arts" theme, the political power struggles of ancient Egypt -- and the passionate love affair between the iconic figures Cleopatra and Cesare -- will come to life on the stage of Indiana University's Musical Arts Center when the Jacobs School of Music stages Giulio Cesare, one of George Frideric Handel's most popular operas.

IU Opera Theater presents a new production of Jules Massenet's Cendrillon (Cinderella), based on the original fairy tale, on Feb. 6, 7, 13 and 14 at 8 p.m. in Bloomington's Musical Arts Center. The production includes new set and costume designs by IU's C. David Higgins.

IU Opera Theater presents a new production of Jules Massenet's Cendrillon (Cinderella), based on the original fairy tale, on Feb. 6, 7, 13 and 14 at 8 p.m. in Bloomington's Musical Arts Center. The production includes new set and costume designs by IU's C. David Higgins.

Indiana University will host the state's auditions for the Metropolitan Opera National Council in the Musical Arts Center on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Indiana University Opera Theater will close the first half of its 60th anniversary season with Sergei Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges at the Musical Arts Center. Oranges opened Nov. 14-15; two shows remain, on Nov. 21 and 22 at 8 p.m. at the MAC. A witty new translation by returning guest stage director Nicholas Muni -- commissioned by IU for this production -- the opera will be sung in English with English supertitles.

Indiana University Opera Theater will close the first half of its 60th anniversary season with Sergei Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges on Nov. 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 8 p.m. in the Musical Arts Center. In this fantastical farce, set in a mythical kingdom long ago, sorceress Fata Morgana puts a curse on a prince, by which he must find and fall in love with three oranges. Absurdist comedy at its best, this lively, entertaining piece is appropriate for all ages.

Indiana University's Opera Theater kicks off its fall season, the first production in the 60th anniversary season and the 400th overall production, with Giuseppe Verdi's widely loved -- and once scandalous -- cross-class romance La Traviata. The opera is staged by noted director Tito Capobianco, a well-known, colorful figure who spent years working with Luciano Pavarotti and was general manager and artistic director of the prestigious Pittsburgh Opera.

Indiana University's Opera Theater kicks off its fall season, the first production in the 60th anniversary season and the 400th overall production, with Giuseppe Verdi's widely loved -- and once scandalous -- cross-class romance La Traviata. The opera is staged by noted director Tito Capobianco, a well-known, colorful figure who spent years working with Luciano Pavarotti and was general manager and artistic director of the prestigious Pittsburgh Opera.

The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music continues to nurture and present the world's greatest musicians. With four new IU Opera and Ballet Theater productions, in addition to the usual hundreds of other performances, the Jacobs School offers another ambitious season in 2008-09. Two internationally distinguished Jacobs faculty talents join forces to kick off the orchestral season on Sept. 17 as Leonard Slatkin conducts the IU Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Joshua Bell at 8 p.m. in the IU Auditorium.

Vincent Liotta is well-known in the opera world for co-founding the renowned Utah Festival Opera and for his stage direction with companies ranging from the Chicago Lyric Opera to the Vienna Staatspoer. This summer, though, Liotta is most thrilled not about a classic opera, but about an uplifting musical comedy, She Loves Me, presented by IU Opera Theater as part of the 2008 Indiana University Summer Music Festival.

Sixty years ago, the first Indiana University Opera Theater production took place in an auditorium that was built as part of an army barracks during World War II. This weekend (April 4-5), IU Opera begins celebrating its 60th anniversary with a reprise of that same opera, Les Contes d'Hoffmann -- except now it will be performed on a stage that rivals New York City's Metropolitan Opera House.

Fantastical tales of love lost and inspiration found will delight Indiana University Opera Theater audiences April 4, 5, 11 and 12 at the Musical Arts Center. Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann depicts a writer's romantic adventures as he searches for his true love and ultimately finds fulfillment in his artistic calling.

The IU Ballet Department's origins as a means of supplying operas with dancers inspired Michael Vernon, chair of the IU Jacobs School's Ballet Department, to offer ballet audiences "A Night at the Opera (at the Ballet)." On March 21 and 22, dancers will perform to ballet music from beloved operas by Gounod, Rossini, Handel and Meyerbeer.

Familiar favorites combine with forays into fantasy in the 60th Indiana University Opera and Ballet Theater season. The 2008-2009 lineup includes beloved standards like Verdi's La Traviata, Giulio Cesare by Handel and The Nutcracker ballet, in addition to fairy-tale fun in Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges and Massenet's Le Cendrillon, the Cinderella story interpreted in the French operatic style.