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Faculty
- Ellen Douglas
Schlaefer, Director of Opera Studies
- Walter Cuttino, Associate Professor
Tenor
- Janet Hopkins, Assistant
Professor, Mezzo soprano
- Lynn Kompass,
vocal coach
- Tina Milhorn
Stallard Assistant Professor; Soprano
- Jacob Will, Assistant Professor, Bass-baritone
- Laury Christie,
Emeritus Professor; Soprano, Alexander Technique
- Donald N. Gray, Emeritus Professor;
Baritone
ELLEN DOUGLAS SCHLAEFER, Director of Opera Studies
joined the School of Music in 2004. She has staged Faust
for The Washington Opera; La Boheme and Romeo
et Juliette with the National Symphony Orchestra (Wolf
Trap Opera);The Abduction from the Seraglio
(The Connecticut Opera); Aida (The Connecticut
Opera); the Francesca Zambello production of The Little
Prince (Houston
Grand Opera, Tulsa Opera);
The Magic Flute (Opera
Memphis,Houston Ebony Opera Guild); La Boheme (Michigan
Opera Theatre,Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Carolina,
Connecticut Opera, Augusta Opera); Porgy
& Bess (Opera Illinois,Connecticut Opera); La
Traviata
(Cleveland Opera, Opera Memphis,Connecticut Opera); Rigoletto
( Opera Carolina ,Piedmont Opera); Salome, Norma,
Die Fledermaus, Tosca, the Ballad of Baby
Doe , Il Tabbaro, Romeo et Juliette (Connecticut
Opera); Madama Butterfly (Artpark & Co., Connecticut
Opera, Houston Ebony Opera); Lucia di Lammermoor (Orlando
Opera); Fidelio
(Cleveland Opera); I Pagliacci (Eugene Opera,Connecticut
Opera). Other operas include La Dolorosa, The
Face on the Barroom Floor, Luisa Fernanda, and Bastien
& Bastienne (Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Tour); Amahl
& the Night Visitors, Gianni Schicchi (Dayton Opera);
The Medium (Augusta Opera); The Telephone (Augusta
Opera,Dayton Opera); Le Ville, Edgar, Martha,
Linda diI Chamounix, La Pietra del Paragon
and The Toy Shop (Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia)
Additional directing projects include the dramas I
Am My Own Wife
(Workshop Theatre of South Carolina) The
Goat
or Who is Sylvia (Trustus Theatre) Master
Class, Grace & Glorie, You Can't Take it
With You and The Sister Rosensweig (Workshop
Theatre of SC); musicals She Loves Me (Coastal Carolina
University):
A Chorus Line, South Pacific, Oklahoma, The
Merry Widow and The King & I (Artpark, Lewiston,
NY) Sweeney Todd for Workshop Theatre and The Princeton
Festival (Princeton , NJ)
Dedicated to arts education, Schlaefer is founder and general
director of FBN Productions, Inc. Opera for Kids, a touring
company based in South Carolina, specializing in bringing
opera into the schools of the Southeast. FBN has shared
the joys of live opera with over 150,000 young people.
www.operaforkids.org She has also worked with the young
artist programs for The Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera,
Opera Carolina, Baltimore Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Connecticut
Opera, Houston Ebony Opera Guild, Dayton Opera, Intermezzo
and Opera Colorado. Upcoming engagements include Scott
Joplin and Treemonisha for Opera Memphis and Doubt for
Trustus Theatre.
 Walter
Cuttino,
Associate Professor of Voice
Walter Cuttino received his Bachelor of Music in Voice from
the University of South Carolina and his Master of Music in
Voice and an Artist Diploma in Opera from the Cincinnati Conservatory
of Music. Upon completing his formal education, Mr. Cuttino
performed throughout Europe, with over 950 operatic appearances
to his credit. Ferrando in Mozart's Così fan tutte,
Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville,
Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Lenski in Tchaikovsky's
Eugene Onegin, and Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème
are among the more than 40 roles in his repertoire. He has
also performed over 250 concerts, including a concert tour
with the late Leonard Bernstein to London and Moscow. He has
been on the University of South Carolina faculty since 1996.
In April 2007 he appeared as Alfredo in La Traviata with
the University of Florida.
 Lynn
Kompass
Assistant Professor
of Voice, Vocal CoachPianist Lynn Kompass
maintains an active career as vocal coach, chamber musician,
recital collaborator, and teacher. She has been teaching
at the University of South Carolina since 2002. Ms.
Kompass has participated in the Steans Vocal Institute
(Ravinia Music Festival), Aspen Music Festival, and
the Banff Centre for the Arts, where she worked with
Margo Garrett, Roger Vignoles, and Martin Isepp. As
an opera coach, Ms. Kompass has worked at the University
of Michigan, University of Tennessee, Aspen Opera Theater,
Palmetto Opera, and Opera Brasil. Ms. Kompass has also
performed in association with Ravinia Music Festival,
Chicago Opera Theater, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Michigan
Chamber Players, and Chicago Civic Orchestra. Her performances
this past season have included recitals at Weill Recital
Hall in New York City, Strings in the Mountain Festival,
University of Texas at Austin, and the International
Conference of Arts and Humanities in Honolulu. Lynn
Kompass received her graduate degrees in Collaborative
Piano at the University of Michigan, where she studied
with Martin Katz and Katherine Collier.
 Tina
Milhorn Stallard, Soprano Assistant Professor of
Voice
Active as a concert artist, soprano Tina Milhorn
Stallard has performed solos in works such as Brahms’ Ein
Deutsches Requiem, Haydn’s The Creation,
Bach’s St. John Passion, and Handel’s Messiah.
She is a featured soloist on the soon-to-be released recording
of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati. Tina has apprenticed
with Central City Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and Kentucky
Opera, and her operatic roles include Beth in Little
Women at
Opera Omaha and Central City, Barbarina in the Italian premier
of Argento’s Casanova’s Homecoming
at the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, and Abigail
in The Crucible at the College-Conservatory of Music.
In addition, she was a national finalist of the Artist
Awards sponsored by the National Association of Teachers
of Singing, district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National
Council Auditions, semi-finalist of the Eleanor McCollum
Competition sponsored by Houston Grand Opera and winner
of the Grace Moore Vocal Competition. She received the
Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music where she studied with Barbara
Honn, and is an alumnus of Belmont University and the University
of Kentucky.
Index
Index
Jacob Will, Bass-baritone
Assistant Professor
Bass-baritone Jacob Will made his New York Philharmonic
debut as soloist in the American Premiere of the Messa per
Rossini, a performance televised live nationwide.
An experienced concert artist, Mr. Will has appeared with
the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vladamir
Ashkenazy and with the Cabrillo Festival under the baton of
Dennis Russell Davies. He has sung with the San Francisco
Symphony in the St. Matthew Passion, with the International
Bach Festival of Schaffhausen, Switzerland in the St. John
Passion, and with the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra in Frank
Martin's Le mystère de la Nativité. He has also
recorded Cherubini’s Messe solennelle under Helmuth Rilling
and Zemlinsky’s Kleider Machen Leute under Ralf Weikert.
Mr. Will has sung for many years with the Zürich Opera
appearing in roles such as Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor,
Mustafa in L'Italiana in Algeri, and Colline in La
Boheme. Other companies with which Mr. Will has appeared
include the New York City Opera as Figaro in Le Nozze di
Figaro, Vancouver Opera as Oroveso in Norma, the
Bavarian State Opera as Samuel in Un Ballo in Maschera
and the San Francisco Opera as Masetto in Don Giovanni.
A native of Hartsville, South Carolina, Mr. Will attended
Furman University and graduated from the University of South
Carolina and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He participated
in the Merola and Adler Fellowship Programs of the San Francisco
Opera and has been a prizewinner in various international
singing competitions including the Munich Competition and
the Queen Elizabeth Competition of Brussels.
Index
 Laury
Christie, Soprano
Emeritus Professor Voice and Alexander Technique
Laury Christie has had an extensive singing career that
bridges the USA and Europe. She has performed over 30 major
opera roles in the lyric and coloratura soprano repertoire.
Her solo debut was with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She
sang in a concert version of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
conducted by Antonio Janegro. Her operatic stage debut followed
with the Milwaukee Opera as Queen of the Night in Mozart's
The Magic Flute.
Ms. Christie made her European debut in Münster, Germany,
with the City Theater, under the musical direction of Alfred
Walter, as Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf
Naxos. Other engagements included theaters in Detmold,
Karlsruhe, Osnabrück, Innsbruck, Stuttgart, and Hannover,
as lead lyric-coloratura.
Ms. Christie has performed with renowned conductors Georg
Solti, Antonio Janegro, Erich Leinsdorf, Carl Maria Giulini,
Margaret Hillis, and Robert Shaw.
Appearances in the USA include soloist with the Boston, Chicgao,
and Milwaukee Symphonies, at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston,
SC, and on public radio.
In addition to her vocal career, Ms. Christie is a certified
teacher of the Alexander Technique, a method of focused relaxation
that helps artists to perform at their best. Ms. Christie's
article on Alexander Technique is available online, as is
detailed information on
her courses on Alexander Technique
Index
 Donald
Gray Baritone
Emeritus Professor
Donald Gray has been a member of the voice faculty since
1972. His students have enjoyed success in numerous competitions.
Some have proceeded to professional singing careers while
others have gone on to successful careers as educators at
various levels.
Dr. Gray has a varied background as singer, opera director,
and choral conductor. He has been a Metropolitan Opera audition
winner and in 1972 won the second annual Mario Lanza Competition.
His roles include standard parts such as Count Almaviva, Papageno,
Don Alfonzo, Marcello, Rigoletto, and the Elder Germont, as
well as a host of roles from twentieth-century repertoire.
The most significant of these was the title role in Isang
Yun's The Butterfly Widow, performed at the Chicago
Lyric Opera in 1971.
In 1984, Dr. Gray was singled out for honor by The State
newspaper in its "Ten for the Future" program.
Equally comfortable in recital, oratorio, and opera, he numbers
among his most recent performances baritone soloist in Orff's
Carmina Burana with the South Carolina Philharmonic
Orchestra, the title roles in Mozart's Don Giovanni
and Verdi's Rigoletto with OPERA at USC, and Schubert's
Die Winterreise.
As a conductor, Dr. Gray served four seasons as director
of The Palmetto Mastersingers, releasing two critically acclaimed
compact disc recordings, and he has been Director of Music
at Eastminster Presbyterian Church for the past twenty-one
years.
Dr. Gray received the degree of Doctor of Music from Northwestern
University. He is a past-president of the South Carolina chapter
of NATS and served several terms as Governor of the South
Carolina chapter of NOA. In 1972, he established the USC Opera
Workshop, and he served for twenty seasons as director of
the Columbia Lyric Opera. In 1999, he directed Britten's Albert
Herring with OPERA at USC.
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