Verismo Opera

Verismo Opera Board

Eliza O'Malley President/Artistic Director
Marsha Sims Secretary/Public Relations
Steve Zimmerman Treasurer
Senen Bagos
Steve Kahn
Cristin Williams

Verismo Opera was started in 2008 by founding artistic director, Frederick Winthrop. Our initial production was La Traviata. Since 2010, our home has been at the Mira Theater. In 2019, soprano Eliza O’Malley took over as Artistic Director.

We are a cooperative opera group that includes skillful singers, orchestral musicians and artists who collaborate to present imaginative, low-cost quality opera productions. Operas are sung in their original language and we offer supertitles in English. Performances include costumes and sets with chamber orchestra in an intimate setting. Our repertoire includes the great works of Puccini, Verdi, Bizet and more.

Our mission is to bring together aspiring professionals, curious community members, and seasoned professionals to share in the experience of recreating great works of opera together. We are committed to bringing opera to the underserved community of Vallejo both to improve the quality of life for our participants and our audiences.

Attracting soloists from the greater Bay Area and beyond, our company has served as a stepping stone to even the most ambitious professionals. Alumni have gone on to perform throughout the world including with The New York Metropolitan Opera, The San Francisco Opera and many regional theaters.

Frederick Winthrop, Verismo Opera's founding artistic director worked with Opera Pacific, Long Beach Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, Honolulu Opera and San Francisco Opera and sang on stage alongside international vocal celebrities such as Pavarotti, Carreras and Domingo and even sang in one of their famous Three Tenor Concerts. For years he sang professionally with Los Angeles Opera chorus and then The San Francisco Opera chorus. He began producing operas when he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1984 where he founded San Francisco Lyric Opera and then went on to found Verismo Opera in 2008. All told, he produced over 125 plus operas and sang 110 roles during his prolific career.