Kostis Protopapas was named Artistic Director of Opera Santa Barbara in August 2015.  The first season he planned with the company in 2016-17 brought critical acclaim as well as box office success, with a sold-out production of Carmen, and the company premieres of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, starring Isabel Bayrakdarian, and Puccini’s La Rondine.  For the 2017-18 season, Kostis has planned for Opera Santa Barbara a lavish production of Massenet’s Manon, a whimsical production of The Barber of Seville, and a double bill of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Douglas Moore’s Gallantry. 

 In addition to successful mainstage performances, under Kostis’ leadership Opera Santa Barbara saw the creation of the Santa Barbara Youth Opera, a program providing educational and performance opportunities for school-age children, the expansion of the company’s Studio Artists program to a season-long residency, and an impressive increase in the company’s outreach and educational performances.

2016 saw the end of Kostis’ long association with Tulsa Opera, where he served as Artistic Director from November 2007 until May 2016, as Interim Executive Director from November 2011 until February 2013 and as Associate Conductor and Chorus Master from 2001 until 2007. During his 15-year tenure with the company, Kostis conducted 30 productions of a diverse repertoire extending from popular classics like La Boheme and Carmen to contemporary American works like Elmer Gantry and A Streetcar Named Desire. About his 2011 Barber of Seville performances, Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote “Most impressive was the fluid idiomatic playing of the orchestra… In any city, it’s rare to find a conductor that sets the right tempo so consistently that you stop noticing he’s there.”

Between 2002 and 2008 Kostis was also an Assistant Conductor for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, LA Opera and Santa Fe Opera. At the Lyric Opera of Chicago he also served as Assistant Chorus Master under Donald Palumbo for two seasons. Kostis started his career on the music staff of Virginia Opera and Opera Memphis; he conducted at Opera in the Ozarks every summer from 2000 to 2004; has been a regular guest conductor at Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis since 2007 and a guest conductor for the Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera Columbus, Shreveport Opera, El Paso Opera, Winter Opera St. Louis and the Westmoreland Symphony.  In 2016-17 he will return to Winter Opera St. Louis to conduct La Cenerentola.

Born in Athens, Greece, Kostis Protopapas studied Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Athens before coming to the United States in 1993, on an Onassis Foundation scholarship, to study piano at The Boston Conservatory and conducting at Boston University. He became an American citizen in 2011 and splits his time between Chicago and Santa Barbara, with his wife, soprano and stage director Cathleen Dunn-Protopapas, and their four cats, Gus, Miles, Zsa-Zsa and Gigi.

 

KOSTIS PROTOPAPAS-Bio-September 2017
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