Carroll Freeman
Stage Director, Dialogues of the Carmelites
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Carroll Freeman is a frequent stage director with Mississippi Opera. Before moving to Mississippi, Freeman was the Valerie Adams Distinguished Professor in Opera Studies at Georgia State University and the and artistic director of the Harrower Summer Opera Workshop. Prior to his work at Georgia State, he served fourteen years as director of opera at the University of Tennessee School of Music and artistic director of the Knoxville Opera Studio.
Freeman began his professional singing career as a child with the Columbus Boychoir. As a boy he also soloed with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera and The Bell Telephone Hour on NBC-TV. He starred as Peter in “Peter, the Chorister” on the CBS-TV series Look Up and Live.
Mr. Freeman made his New York City Opera adult debut as Alfredo in La traviata and his European debut at the Edinburgh Festival in The Postman Always Rings Twice, repeating the success he had enjoyed in its world premiere with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. His performance of Don Ottavio in Peter Sellars’ production of Don Giovanni was seen worldwide and on PBS-TV’s Great Performances; live in New York, Vienna and Paris; and on Deutsche-Grammaphon video, released by Polygram. He also performed at the Nissei Theater in Tokyo in the Japanese premiere of Miki’s Joruri. He was featured on the Pro Arte CD, H.M.S. Gilbert & Sullivan, chosen by CD Review as one of the best classical CDs of 1990.
Mr. Freeman has performed with Houston Grand Opera, Baltimore Opera, San Diego Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Atlanta Opera, New Orleans Opera, Minnesota Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Pacific, Kentucky Opera, and many others. He has appeared with the festivals of Wolf Trap Farm Park, Pepsico Summerfare, Saratoga Springs, Lake George Opera, Chautauqua, Central City Opera, ArtPark, and Des Moines Metro Opera. He has soloed with Eduardo Mata and the Dallas Symphony; Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony; Sergiù Comissiona and the Houston Symphony; Philadelphia Orchestra; Minnesota Symphony; National Symphony; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and made several appearances at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Mr. Freeman was a 1980 and 1981 winner of the National Opera Institute Award given at the Kennedy Center by Beverly Sills and Harold Prince.
Mr. Freeman received his BM in vocal performance from the University of Southern Mississippi and his MPA in opera performance from Oklahoma City University. He is past artistic director of Mississippi Opera and Opera in the Ozarks and a past co-director of the Des Moines Metro Opera apprentice program. Freeman has stage-directed for New Orleans Opera, Knoxville Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Nashville Opera, El Paso Opera, Mobile Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Company of Mid-Michigan, Mississippi Opera, Phoenix Opera, Opera Festival of Oklahoma, Cleveland Institute of Music, the Lyric Opera of Dallas, La Musica Lirica (Novafeltria, Italy), Opera Aegean/Greek Opera Studio (Athens and Syros, Greece), the Festival of International Opera (Campinas, Brazil), and taught masterclasses at Beveren Summer Vocal Institute (Antwerp, Belgium), the American Institute of Musical Studies (Graz, Austria), and the Hochschule Lübeck (Germany).
An inductee into the Knoxville Opera Hall of Fame, Carroll Freeman has also been honored by the National Federation of Music Clubs with a Presidential Citation. To top it all off, Mr. Freeman was named Classical Singer magazine’s “Stage Director of the Year, 2010.”