Opera Modesto was founded in 1983 as the Townsend Opera Players by Erik “Buck” Townsend who was born and raised in Modesto, California. Buck led a successful career as a tenor performing in opera houses around the world for over twenty years before returning home to Modesto to create an opera company that would not only bring high caliber performers to the region but build a strong community through music in his hometown.
During his tenure as General Director, Buck produced eighty fully staged operas and musicals and built community through the arts for generations of families living in Modesto through the “Camerateen and Cameratini,” a training and performance program for youth in community, and through the Kristina Townsend Memorial Vocal Competition, which to this day rewards promising young singers in the Central Valley. Buck continued directing and conducting shows and overseeing the company’s artistic activities until his death in September 2008.
From 2008 to 2017, Matthew Buckman and then Music Director Ryan Murray led Townsend Opera, during which time the scale and quality of the mainstage operas continued to grow with many outstanding productions mounted, including the world premiere of Zenobia Powell Perry’s Tawawa House.
In 2018, international opera singer and Modesto native Roy Stevens was named the General Director of the newly renamed Opera Modesto. Soprano Annalisa Winberg soon joined the staff as the company’s Artistic Director, directing the company’s mainstage performances, and bringing her compelling international artistic perspective.
Since 2018, Roy and Annalisa have continued to grow the company: raising the production value of the mainstage and greatly expanding the company’s youth and educational offerings through the Summer Opera Institute, which provides conservatory level musical training to teens in the Central Valley, and the Story-Into-Song Literacy Initiative which brings operas inspired by books and stories to over 10,000 students TK through university in the region. Opera Modesto continues to grow and thrive and Buck Townsend’s “impossible dream” of professional opera in the Central Valley of California is alive and well.
