About                Director              Artists              Upcoming Performances            Repertoire

BARRY JOHNSON (Director)- baritone, has attracted national attention among leading conductors, directors, and opera companies as a versatile singing actor. Creator of more than 50 opera roles, Mr. Johnson is a frequent guest with companies throughout the country including Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Opera Colorado, Anchorage Opera, Portland Opera, Central City Opera, Rogue Opera, Las Vegas Opera, and the Wildwood Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Notable roles in his repertoire include the title role in The Marriage of Figaro, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Marcello in La Boheme, Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance, Le Bailli in Werther, Dancairo in Carmen, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Marullo in Rigoletto, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Prince Ottokar in Der Freischutz, Baron Douphol in La Traviata, Angelotti in Tosca, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Fleville in Andrea Chenier, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, and Jupiter in Orpheus in the Underworld.

On the concert stage, Mr. Johnson has been a soloist with orchestras throughout the Northwest including Seattle Symphony, Tacoma Symphony, American Sinfonietta, Yakima Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, and Orchestra Seattle. Concert engagements have included Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Frahm’s War Cantata, Bach’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Requiem, and Faure’s Requiem.

Mr. Johnson’s professional stage directing credits include Puccini’s La Boheme, Rossini’s Le Comte Ory, Bernstein’sTrouble in Tahiti, Puccini’s Tosca, Bizet/Brook's La Tragedie de Carmen, Menotti’s The Telephone, Bizet’s Dr. Miracle, and Pasatieri’s La Divina, with Tacoma Opera.

As Director of Opera Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University from 1994 to 2004, Mr. Johnson’s fully staged productions included Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Suor Angelica.

Mr. Johnson was a national winner of the Bel Canto Competition of Chicago and a regional winner of the Metropolitan and San Francisco Auditions.