Creative Team
Lara Bolton
Artistic Director
Lara Bolton is a pianist, vocal coach, conductor, and arranger. A multi-faceted artist, the majority of her work centers on vocal collaborations across many genres. Operatic affiliations include San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, Washington Concert Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Florentine Opera, Quad Cities Symphony, Opera Santa Barbara, Out of the Box Opera, West Bay Opera, Opera Colorado, and Amarillo Opera. In 2022, Ms. Bolton conducted Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia for An Opera Theatre, and has led musical preparation for projects at the Guthrie and Jungle Theaters, and Theater Latté Da. She is the Artistic Director for the Opera Reading Project, and former Head of Music for Mill City Summer Opera, as well as an official pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. Ms. Bolton is the interim Professor of Collaborative Piano and Coaching at the University of Minnesota, and maintains an active concert and recording career. In addition to classical music, she also regularly collaborates as a rock keyboardist, and arranges and co-creates various conceptual and genre-bending fusion projects. Her most recent fusion project was music directing Macbeth and the Weïrd Sisters, a conceptual piece centering the opera Macbeth, by Giuseppi Verdi.
Ms. Bolton is a former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow and Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist at Washington National Opera. She helped develop a Young Artist Program for Opera Santa Barbara. Summer festival engagements include the Merola Opera Program, Music Academy of the West, Brevard Music Festival, and Interlochen Arts Camp. As an alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy, she received a Bachelor of Music Theory degree from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano from the University of Maryland-College Park.
Hear about ORP from our Artistic Director, Lara Bolton.
Elena Stabile
Interim Executive Director
Elena Stabile (she/they) is a dynamic performer of opera, jazz, and contemporary art music. In addition to performance, she also works as a voice teacher, writer, arts administrator, and opera dramaturg with emphasis on new works development. She recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Minnesota, with a secondary emphasis on Musicology, and sings regularly with Twin Cities area churches and music organizations. She also serves at the Administrative Coordinator of the Mount Olivet School of Music and Arts, and she is a member of the music faculty at Normandale Community College.
Stabile’s research and writing focuses on a holistic analysis of opera as a performance medium, with specific emphasis on adaptation theory and its application to operatic scholarship. She is an active advocate for the development of new operas and the importance of pushing the boundaries of the art form in the twenty-first century.
Stabile received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance at Lawrence University and Conservatory of Music, and her Master of Music in Voice Performance at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Recent projects include Pierrot Lunaire with the UMN New Music Ensemble, Dark Sisters (Almera cover) with Journey North Opera, a self produced and directed La voix humaine (Elle), and Eugene Onegin (Tatyana) with Skylark Opera. She is also a three year Performance Fellow with the Nief Norf Summer Festival in Knoxville, TN.
Eric McEnaney
Creative Advisor
Eric McEnaney enjoys a multifaceted career as a distinguished pianist, vocal coach, and artist teacher whose Grammy-nominated work has been heard on stages throughout the country. He has assisted on the musical preparation of more than 100 productions for companies throughout the country and is currently a Master Coach for Minnesota Opera. Dr. McEnaney has also worked as a guest coach for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Central City Opera, Virginia Opera, Opera Southwest, Skylark Opera, Theater Latté Da, and Lyric Opera of the North, among others, and served as Principal Production Pianist & Coach at Florentine Opera Company for four seasons, where he oversaw the musical preparation of a dozen shows and two world-premiere recordings, Sister Carrie (Aldridge/Garfein) and Prince of Players (Carlisle Floyd).
As a recitalist, Dr. McEnaney has collaborated with singers from the rosters of the nation’s leading opera houses. He serves as an official accompanist for the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in the Minnesota and Wisconsin districts, regularly works as an orchestral keyboardist for Minnesota Orchestra, and has appeared with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Civic Symphony, and the orchestras of Minnesota Opera and Central City Opera. Dr. McEnaney’s performances have been broadcast locally and nationally on PBS, Great Performances, Minnesota Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, Twin Cities Public Television, KSTP-TV's Twin Cities Live, WCCO-TV’s Mid-Morning, and American Public Media. He has assisted many of the most renowned classical vocal artists of our time in masterclasses and private sessions. Dr. McEnaney holds advanced degrees in piano performance and collaborative piano and maintains a private vocal coaching studio in Minneapolis, where he also resides.
Sarah Morean
Administrative Assistant
Brian R. Pollack, Legal Advisor
Board of Directors
Colleen O’Shaughnessy Pollack, president
Julie Taylor Bardon, secretary
Joseph O’Shaughnessy, treasurer
Lara Bolton, director
Eric McEnaney, director
Victoria Vargas, director