"Opera lovers take note. In a remarkably short period of time, Leigh Holman, director of the UALR Opera Theatre Workshop, has built opera into a student activity worthy of broad community support."
Max Brantley, Arkansas Times, 2005
Biography
Leigh Holman is the Director of Opera at the University of Colorado and is an established stage director in the fields of Opera and Musical Theatre. From 2006 through June of 2009, she served as Director of the Opera Colorado Ensemble Artists. There she staged two touring productions per season, concerts and other presentations to promote Opera Colorado and the young artists contracted into the program. Holman was previously Chair of the Voice and Opera Studies Area at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and founded the UALR Opera Theatre, still a thriving program. She has directed and performed for such companies and opera institutions as Portland Opera, Nashville Opera, National Opera, Wildwood Opera, Opera Theatre of Fort Collins, University of Colorado, University of Arkansas, Eastman Opera Theatre and others. Some of her productions directing and assistant directing include il barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel and Gretel, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, La Traviata, Falstaff, The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, The Tender Land, Amahl and the Night Visitors, La Cenerentola, The Sound of Music, Trial by Jury, Iolanthe, The Island of Tulipatan, La Curandera, Noye's Fludde, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me a Little, Red, Hot and Cole and many operatic and musical theatre scenes programs spanning from the Baroque period to Contemporary American works. Holman, a mezzo-soprano, received a graduate Opera Performance degree on full fellowship from the Eastman School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from The University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Southern Califormia. In addition to directing over 25 professional and academic operatic and musical theatre productions, last fall she served as assistant director for Ron Daniels (Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in London) in his critically acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly at Opera Colorado and this spring, her productions of Rossini's La Cenerentola and Richard Wargo's The Music Shop toured the state with Opera Colorado's Ensemble Artists. Before Holman's departure at Opera Colorado, she expanded the Ensemble Artist program from a 5-month Outreach Program to a 7-month Young Artist Program providing budding opera singers with the opportunity for mainstage experience, training and exposure. Upcoming directing projects are La Traviata, Don Giovanni and Our Town at the University of Colorado and Holman is slated to direct Rigoletto at the Burgatti Theatre in Cento, Italy in January of 2011 among other directing workshop and singing engagements.
Click below to download Holman's Curriculum Vitae and Philosophy of Teaching
| holman.pdf |
| philosophy.pdf |
Madama Butterfly, Opera Colorado - Opening Night, 2008
"My Great Honor was to serve as Assistant Director to Ron Daniels", Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. "He is a true master of the art form."
-Leigh Holman
Goodboyjake Creations. 2009.