Philip Kraus
Encyclopedia
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
and stage director known for his performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, starting in 1991, and for his co-founding of Light Opera Works
Light Opera Works
Light Opera Works is a resident professional not-for-profit musical theatre company in Evanston, Illinois. It was founded in 1980 by Philip Kraus, Bridget McDonough , and Ellen Dubinsky....
, a professional light opera company in Chicago, in 1980.
Early training
Kraus was born in New York City and received early musical training. As a child, he developed a keen interest in the works of Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
. In addition to singing, he also composed music and conducted choirs.
Kraus studied music education at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and eventually earned a Doctor of Music in Applied Voice from that institution in 1986. He studied voice with tenor Walter Carringer
Walter Carringer
Walter Carringer is an American classical tenor who had an active career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s and 1960s. He was twice the recipient of the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation award and was a winner of the American Federation of Music Clubs singing competition...
, choral music with Margaret Hillis
Margaret Hillis
Margaret Hillis was an American conductor. She was the founder and first director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus.-Life:...
, and opera with Robert Gay, a disciple of Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky was a Russian conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the United States. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America...
. He participated in the 1974 American premiere of Sir Michael Tippett's The Knot Garden at Northwestern, singing the role of Mangus.
Operatic and concert career
In 1979, Kraus made his professional debut singing the role of the Vicar in Benjamin BrittenBenjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Albert Herring
Albert Herring
Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...
with the Chicago Opera Theater. He later played the title role in Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
with the company. With the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
, in 1979, he sang in Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's Dettingen Te Deum and the Chicago premiere of American composer Russell Woollen's In Martyrium Memoriam. Also in 1979, he recorded the role of Zweiter Gefangene in Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
with the CSO, conducted by Sir Georg Solti.
Kraus began a long association as soloist with the Grant Park Concerts in Chicago in 1979, performing Haydn's Mass in Time of War under conductor Thomas Peck. He followed this singing Elgar's The Kingdom
The Kingdom (Elgar)
The Kingdom, Op. 51, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar.It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The...
, under Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...
, in 1981. Kraus went on to sing with other American orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...
,Dallas Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its primary performing venue is the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts...
, and many others, working with conductors Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
, Eduardo Mata
Eduardo Mata
Eduardo Mata was a Mexican conductor and composer.Mata was born in Mexico City. He studied guitar privately for three years before enrolling in the National Conservatory of Music. From 1960 to 1963 he studied composition under Carlos Chávez, Héctor Quintanar and Julián Orbón. In 1964 he received a...
, Bruno Bartoletti, Zdeněk Mácal
Zdenek Mácal
Zdeněk Mácal is a Czech conductor.Mácal began violin lessons with his father at age four. He later attended the Brno Conservatory and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, where he graduated in 1960 with top honors. He became principal conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and...
, Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis (conductor)
Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE is a British conductor.Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire to Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence J. née Badminton, Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford. Davis attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied classics in his sixth form years...
, James Conlon
James Conlon
James Conlon is an American conductor and the current Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera.-Early years:Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Cherry Street in Douglaston, Queens, New York. His mother, Angeline L. Conlon, was a freelance writer. His father was an assistant to the New...
, David Zinman
David Zinman
David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...
, Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
, James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
, Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
, Mark Elder
Mark Elder
Sir Mark Philip Elder, CBE is a British conductor. He is the music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.-Biography:Elder was born in Hexham, Northumberland, England, the son of a dentist...
, Anton Coppola
Anton Coppola
Maestro Anton Coppola is an American opera conductor and composer. He is the uncle of film director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the great-uncle of Nicolas Cage, Sofia Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola , Jason Schwartzman and Robert Schwartzman.-Life:Coppola started his...
, Gisele Ben-Dor, and Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop is an American conductor and violinist. She is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.In 2012, Alsop will replace Yan Pascal Tortelier as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra....
. He has been a soloist at the Handel Week Festival in Oak Park, Illinois
Oak Park, Illinois
Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...
several times, at Mahlerfest in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
(2001), and sang Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's Elijah
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
in 1996 with New Oratorio Singers.
Kraus joined the roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
for the 1990 season and has remained with the company for many seasons. His roles with the company include Jose Castro in La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
(1991), Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(1992), Micah in The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
(1993), Alcindoro in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
(1993), the Sacristan in Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
(1994), Elder MacLean in Susannah
Susannah
Susannah is an opera in two acts by American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending...
(1994), various supporting roles in Candide
Candide (operetta)
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
(1994), Amantio di Nicolao in Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
(1996), Southern Senator in Amistad (1997; world premiere, by composer Anthony Davies), Helmsman in Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
(1999), Meyer Wolfshiem in The Great Gatsby (2000), the Mayor in Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
(2000), Abe Kaplan in Street Scene
Street Scene (opera)
Street Scene is a Broadway musical or, more precisely, an "American opera" by Kurt Weill , Langston Hughes , and Elmer Rice...
(2001), Ratcliffe in Billy Budd
Billy Budd (opera)
Billy Budd is an opera by Benjamin Britten, from a libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, was first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 1 December 1951. It is based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville....
(2002), Baron Douphol in La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
(2003), Benoit/Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro (2003), and Harashta in The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...
(2004). In the company's 2007-08 season, he played Baron Douphol in La Traviata. In 2010, he played Pish-Tush in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
said that he brought "appropriate snark" to the role.
In 1995, he sang the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
with Minnesota Opera
Minnesota Opera
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen...
, and in 1994 sang the Vicar in Albert Herring with Cleveland Opera
Cleveland Opera
Opera Cleveland is Cleveland, Ohio's professional opera company, formed in 2006 following a merger between two existing opera companies: the Cleveland Opera , and the area's other professional opera company, Lyric Opera Cleveland.-Cleveland Opera:Cleveland Opera was incorporated by David...
. He also sang the Sacristan in Tosca with that company in 2002 Recently he joined the roster of the Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
in 2006 singing Baron Duphol in La Traviata in a cast that included Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
. The production was broadcast by radio station WFMT in Los Angeles. In 2007, Kraus portrayed the composer Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
in a concert production of Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri
Mozart and Salieri
Mozart and Salieri is a one-act opera in two scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, written in 1897 to a Russian libretto taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's 1830 verse drama of the same name....
.
Light Opera Works
Kraus, after having been involved with the Northwestern University Gilbert and Sullivan Guild as director, co-founded Light Opera WorksLight Opera Works
Light Opera Works is a resident professional not-for-profit musical theatre company in Evanston, Illinois. It was founded in 1980 by Philip Kraus, Bridget McDonough , and Ellen Dubinsky....
in 1980, one of only a few professional companies devoted to the operetta genre in the United States. He served as Artistic Director for 19 seasons directing 38 mainstage productions. Under his artistic direction the company produced Chicago premieres and revivals of Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
(1881), The Beautiful Galatea (1982), Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta (operetta)
Naughty Marietta is an operetta in two acts, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young and music by Victor Herbert. Set in New Orleans in 1780, it tells how Captain Richard Warrington is commissioned to unmask and capture a notorious French pirate calling himself "Bras Priqué" – and how he is helped and...
(1983), Utopia, Limited
Utopia, Limited
Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was the second-to-last of Gilbert and Sullivan's fourteen collaborations, premiering on 7 October 1893 for a run of 245 performances...
(1984), The Gypsy Baron
The Gypsy Baron
The Gypsy Baron is an operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss II which premiered at the Theater an der Wien on 24 October 1885. Its libretto was by the author Ignaz Schnitzer and in turn was based on Sáffi by Mór Jókai. During the composer's lifetime, the operetta enjoyed great success, second...
(1985), The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel, is the final Savoy Opera written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, their fourteenth and last opera together. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on March 7, 1896, and ran for 123 performances...
(1992), The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (1986), Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
(1986, 1995), The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier is an operetta composed in 1908 by Oscar Straus based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play, Arms and the Man...
(1987), Wiener Blut
Wiener Blut (operetta)
Wiener Blut is an operetta named after the "Wiener Blut" waltz, supposedly with music by the composer Johann Strauss the Younger, who did not live to witness the première. Such was the popularity of the original "Wiener Blut" Op...
(1989), Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (operetta)
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough , which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. The creators wanted to cash in on the extraordinary success of The Wizard of Oz,...
(1993), La vie parisienne
La vie parisienne
La vie parisienne is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.This work was Offenbach's first full-length piece to portray contemporary Parisian life, unlike his earlier period pieces and mythological subjects...
(1984), The Golden Apple
The Golden Apple (musical)
The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of parts of each of the Iliad and Odyssey epics of Homer, with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche...
(1995), The Czardas Princess (1990) and Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian-born composer of operettas.- Biography :Kálmán was born Imre Koppstein in Siófok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary in a Jewish family.Kálmán initially intended to become a concert pianist, but because of early-onset arthritis, he focused on composition...
's little-known The Duchess of Chicago
Die Herzogin von Chicago
Die Herzogin von Chicago is an operetta in two acts, a prologue, and an epilogue. The music was composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán with a libretto by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald. It premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien, on April 5, 1928 and played for 372 performances...
(1998). While Kraus was artistic director, the company also produced stage works of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, including Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis...
(1989), Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday is a musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson ; it was directed by Joshua Logan. Among the songs introduced was the "September Song", now considered a pop standard.- History :...
(1992), and One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus is a musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the novella The Tinted Venus by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygmalion myth. The show satirizes contemporary American suburban values,...
(1997), some of which had been little seen by to modern audiences. He also produced all 13 extant Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
s during his tenure with company.
Director, translator and educator
Kraus served as resident stage director for the Pamiro Opera in Green Bay, WisconsinGreen Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
from 1988 to 1996, directing productions of L'Italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
(1988), The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
(1989), The Daughter of the Regiment (1990),Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
(1991), The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
(1992), La Traviata (1993), Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
(1994), Rigoletto (1995), and the world premiere of Gordon Parmentier's The Lost Dauphin (2000), which was videotaped by Wisconsin Public Television
Wisconsin Public Television
Wisconsin Public Television is a state network of public television stations operated primarily by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin–Extension...
for broadcast.
For the Chicago Cultural Center, he directed Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
's The Breasts of Tiresias in 2000 and Mozart's The Impresario in 2001 for which he prepared the English translation. At the Lyric Opera Cleveland, he directed Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
, by Gilbert and Sullivan, in 2002, and The Mikado in 2004, in his 1986 Elizabethan concept.
Kraus has prepared several English singing translations of operas and operettas in collaboration with lyricist Gregory Opelka. These include Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus may refer to:*Oscar Straus , Viennese composer of operettas*Oscar Straus , United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor from 1906 to 1909...
' The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier is an operetta composed in 1908 by Oscar Straus based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play, Arms and the Man...
and A Waltz Dream and Kalman's The Duchess of Chicago. Other translations include La Serva Padrona
La serva padrona
La serva padrona is an opera buffa by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, after the play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. The opera is only 45 minutes long and was originally performed as an intermezzo between the acts of a larger serious opera...
, Orpheus in the Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld
Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....
, Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
, Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
, The Coronation of Poppea and The Land of Smiles
The Land of Smiles
The Land of Smiles is a romantic operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár. The German language libretto was by Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner. The performance time is about 100 minutes....
.
From 1982 to 1987, Kraus served as the Director of the De Paul University Opera Theater in Chicago. He then taught applied voice at De Paul from 1993 to 1999. From 1999-2002 Kraus served as the Director of Opera at Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
in Chicago. Kraus has been a Lecturer at Northwestern University School of music in the opera program since 2005, and he teaches at North Park University in Chicago as well.