Dr. Robert Larsen with James Collier
Founder and Director Emeritus
Dr. Robert L. Larsen has served as Founder andArtistic Director of the Des Moines Metro Opera from its inception in 1973 until the autumn of 2010, when he was appointed Founder and Director Emeritus, a lifetime appointment. For 37 years, he was in charge of musical and stage direction for all productions of the Opera Festival - a staggering total of 113 productions. In addition, he has coached singers at Tanglewood and Oglebay Park, West Virginia; Chicago and New York, and has assisted in the training of many singers with important operatic careers.
Most recently, he has been a Professor of Music at Simpson College, where he has taught paiano, Medieval and Renaissance Music, 19th and 20th Century Music, Advanced Conducting, Romanticism in the Arts, as well as directing the Madrigal Singers and occupying the G.D. and Maine M. Larsen Chair in Opera. For thirty-four years,he served as Chairman of the Music Department.
Dr. Larsen holds an undergraduate degree from Simpson College; a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in opera and conducting from Indiana University. He has appeared as a conductor with with the Mississippi Opera, the Da Capo Opera Theater in New York; as stage director with the Carmel Bach Festival, Carmel, California, and as musical and stage director with the University of Arizona Opera Theater.
For G. Schirmer, he has compiled and edited the Opera Aria Anthology in seven volumes as well as recordings of piano accompaniments of Mozart arias and the songs of Joseph Marx. A second album of soprano and one for coloratura soprano are among his more recent publications, with an album of annotated scenes for opera workshops on the horizon.
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