#Peter Kazaras

Drawing on pop culture and technology, Long Beach Opera’s James Darrah is one of the most exciting directors working today. And he found his love of opera under Peter Kazaras’s mentorship at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. 

Angel Blue hadn’t performed in Los Angeles for 15 years. A southern California native and alumna of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music graduate vocal program, Blue has spent the intervening time headlining opera’s biggest stages. In November 2022, she returned home. Her first stop was singing Tosca with the Los Angeles Opera. Her next: performing the inaugural Judith L. Smith voice recital at Schoenberg Hall.

Kazaras, distinguished professor and director of Opera UCLA, recently directed Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro for the Seattle Opera.

The Herb Alpert School of Music is proud to present film/TV orchestrator, music industry lecturer and composer Jonathan Beard’s (Respect, King Richard, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and The Mandalorian) world premiere of his cinematic horror opera Cesare, Child of Night via live stream on Halloween night, Oct. 31. Cesare, Child of Night is a one-act electroacoustic opera based on the

The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is proud to announce the promotion of two of our faculty members to the rank of Distinguished Professor: Peter Kazaras and Ian Krouse.

REVIEW: Opera UCLA Director Peter Kazaras directed "The Ghosts of Versailles," with music by John Corigliano, at the Chautauqua Opera Company's amphitheater on August 10. "This show requires a large cast of around 40, and Peter Kazaras’ direction clarified the spectral, theatrical and real characters and, usually, their individual motivations."

READ: Opera UCLA Director Peter Kazaras was recognized for his work in the Washington National Opera’s production of “The Barber of Seville.” Music critic Anne Midgette wrote “…it was not only the greatest opera event of the year, but also possibly the greatest production of “Barber” ever.”

World-wide celebrations are underway honoring American composer, conductor and educator Leonard Bernstein, who would have been 100 on August 25, 2018. Opera UCLA joins the global celebration with an evening dedicated to Bernstein’s theater music plus his late masterpiece SONGFEST, on Nov. 17.

Stage director, tenor, and all-around Seattle Opera MVP Peter Kazaras discusses THE TURN OF THE SCREW and the operas of Benjamin Britten with Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean.