A native of St. Louis, John Stephens holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Hamburg, Germany and took advanced training at the Juilliard School of Music. Stephens was a professional opera singer for forty-five years, singing lead and supporting roles with opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera, Cleveland Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Company of Boston, Minnesota Opera and many others. He has a long relationship with Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has performed in many of our productions from 1981–2014, including the 1995 production of The Pirates of Penzance.
Stephens has directed professionally for the past nineteen years, specializing in the works of Mozart, Gilbert & Sullivan, and Benjamin Britten. Concert appearances have been with the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the National, Boston, Kansas City and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, as well as several years as bass soloist with the Bach Aria Group. He has recorded for Columbia and Nonesuch records.
Stephens has been a member of the faculty at the University of Kansas School of Music since 1981, teaching voice and directing opera. There he received the Kemper Award for Teaching Excellence, and his students have sung with major opera companies around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Paris Opera, Covent Garden, The Beyreuth Festival, Santa Fe Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and the Tanglewood Festival, as well as on Broadway and in numerous national tours.
