<p>Universities???? My EX girlfriend is going to SMU from an elite private high school with a world class choir to study voice with a particular professor. Also I hear that Univ of Indiana (Bloomington) has a strong opera oriented voice program.</p>
<p>No one mentioned Wagner on Staten Island - I thought they had a good voice program. Also, how about the U. of Hartford. And Peabody's voice program is not bad.</p>
<p>Renee Fleming is an alumni of Crane, not Eastman.. to whoever posted that earlier. ;) She's one of ours... Lisa Vroman as well. </p>
<p>Crane School of Music (SUNY Potsdam) has a strong vocal program. Even though it's bigger for education as a whole, there are a whole lot of vocal performance majors or people that are doubling performance/education. :)</p>
<p>Juilliard Conservatory and Yale School of Music have the most prestigious opera programs (I happen to know a number of opera singers, and studied briefly in a music school myself). However they are obviously extremely selective, probably not what you're looking for unless you're already performing internationally. To get into Yale's conservatory you either have to go to another top conservatory first, or also be able to get into Yale's undergrad program and then find a teacher, which is almost impossible (Eliot Fisk did it for guitar but I can't think of any opera singers who managed that).</p>
<p>You might look at Oberlin and Indiana, which are close runners-up in opera from what I've heard, and they take students who aren't already world famous. Eastman is obviously another great bet. Most of the others people have mentioned here are also definitely worth a look (U Hartford, Crane, etc)</p>
<p>Renee Fleming was a grad student at Eastman</p>
<p>I know Denyce Graves went to the New England Conservatory in Boston. I keep hearing good things about opera at NEC. Oberlin and Julliard are supposed to be really good as well. University of Michigan is really good too!</p>
<p>UMich is a great conservatory in general (esp. piano, etc.) but I haven't heard anything about their opera program - how is it?</p>
<p>Michigan has an excellent classical voice program. </p>
<p>As many of us have mentioned, it is important to pick the teacher and not just the school.</p>