Charles MacKay to discuss the future of opera April 13

April 3, 2007 -- Charles MacKay, general director of Opera Theatre of St Louis, will speak on "The Next Four Hundred Years of Opera" at 4 p.m. Friday, April 13.

The lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences. It takes place in Room 102 of the Music Classrooms Building, 6500 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-4841 or email staylor@wustl.edu.

Lisa Kohler

Charles MacKay

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MacKay has led Opera Theatre for more than 20 years, during which time the company has won national and international acclaim for its innovative repertory and discovery of important young singers.

Under his leadership, Opera Theatre has commissioned eight world premieres and presented a number of important American premieres and revivals, including recent critically acclaimed productions of John Adam's Nixon in China and Benjamin Britten's Gloriana. MacKay also has presided over the growth of Opera Theatre's operating endowment from $433,000 to $17 million. Construction of the Sally S. Levy Opera Center, a new rehearsal and administrative facility, was completed in May 2006.

Raised in Santa Fe, MacKay is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota, where he majored in music performance, and a former member of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He spent five years managing American artists for the "Festival of Two Worlds" in Spoleto, Italy, and six years as director of finance and administration with the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, S.C. He was named executive director of Opera Theatre in 1984 and general director in 1985.

MacKay also currently serves as chairman of the Board of Directors of OPERA America and formerly served as chairman of the Opera-Music Theatre panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a frequent adjudicator for the Metropolitan Opera Guild auditions.

Though the first operas were staged in Florence around the turn of the 17th century, this year marks the 400th anniversary of Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), the earliest opera still performed with frequency around the world. Opera Theatre staged Orfeo as part of its 1997 season.