The Voxman Music Building’s Herald Stark Opera Studio is so large that you could fit the entire Hancher Auditorium stage into it.

The studio in the 2-year-old Voxman has the exact stage footprint as Hancher—“not the wings, but the stage,” says Bill Theisen, UI associate professor and director of opera. “It’s a big space. The Coralville Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA) stage fits in quite well.”

The floor is currently taped to replicate the CCPA stage, which will be transformed into a 1920s beachfront hotel lobby in Sanremo, Italy, for upcoming performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

Stairs are marked, as are different levels of the stage, and set pieces and props are positioned as they will be during the performance.

“This gives students a sense of the space long before we can get on the actual stage,” Theisen says.

Emily Wheeler, a first-year MA student in voice, says she thinks this is the biggest benefit the studio provides.

“In productions I’ve done elsewhere, we’ve rehearsed in a space much smaller than the stage we would actually perform on,” the Springfield, Illinois, native says, adding that Voxman Music Building is what initially attracted her to the UI. “But in here, we have everything taped out to the inch of how it will be on the Coralville stage. I don’t have to guess how long it will take to walk from stage left to stage right, or how long it will take to walk down the stairs to the front of the stage. It’s a huge advantage.”

Theisen says the space—which combines the acoustic requirements and aspects necessary for an elite rehearsal and performance space with traditional classroom elements—ranks among the best university opera studios in the country. David Gier, director of the UI School of Music, agrees.

“The spaces in Voxman, including the Stark Opera Studio, support student learning in important and dramatic ways,” Gier says. “Students have the opportunity to work in spaces that have the appropriate acoustic feedback to develop as musicians. And because the spaces are acoustically isolated, hundreds of students can make music at the same time without interfering with each other.”

While the versatile space primarily functions as an opera studio, it also plays host to music classes, workshops, recitals, and various campus events.

“I think we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of what is possible in that studio,” Gier says. “It’s a marvelous space because of the possibilities it suggests for students. It’s like a sandbox that way. It’s well-designed in a practical manner—the acoustics for example—but it’s also an inspiring space for them to use their imagination and experiment.”

Like other performance spaces in Voxman, the opera studio was built as a “box within a box” to minimize sound transfer by structurally isolating it from other spaces, such as the Concert Hall above it. This means that the concrete ceiling of the opera studio is isolated from the concrete floor of the Concert Hall, the gypsum board walls are isolated from the structural concrete walls, and the wood floor is built up off of the concrete slab.

“Right outside the studio is the student commons, and you’d think you’d be able to hear sounds from outside the room, but you can’t,” Wheeler says. “That gives me a lot of comfort. Inside those walls, it’s just a place to experiment and not worry about sound.”

The studio is in its fourth semester of use, and some tweaks have been made along the way. For example, Theisen says that acoustically, the room wasn’t quite as live as they would have liked when they moved in, so in summer 2017, acoustic tiles on the ceiling were adjusted and few more acoustic panels were added to the walls. Theatrical lighting also was installed.

“We’ve learned a great deal, and everyone has been willing to make adjustments to make it perfect,” Theisen says. “I’m still learning the lighting, and there are a few things to fine-tune, but I think we’re just about all set now.”

The studio includes curtains that can be pulled around the entire room, covering the windows during the day to make the space a black box, and adjusted to accomplish specific acoustic goals. Multiple curtains can be pulled out to create wings on either side of the stage. A wall of mirrors—which can be covered by the curtains when not in use—also is available for certain theatrical exercises, and a storage room in the back provides space for props and costumes.

The seating, which can accommodate about 100 people, is capable of automatically folding into itself—similar to gymnasium bleachers—to create extra space in the room. Wheeler says during rehearsal, cast members will sit in different parts of the seating so actors on stage can practice singing to different areas of the audience.

The Stark Opera Studio also is wired for audio recording, making it convenient for musicians to record new work. It also includes standard classroom technology such as a large screen, projector, audio equipment, and control panel.

Theisen says the space is quite an improvement from their temporary home after the 2008 flood destroyed the old Voxman building. Before the new Voxman was built, a retail space originally meant to house a takeout pizza business across the street from the new building served as the opera workshop room. When it came time to rehearse, they did so in the former University of Iowa Museum of Art building.

“There were a bunch of half walls when you walked in the building and we used a space in the back,” says Jeff Rickerl, a fourth-year undergrad from Clinton, Iowa, working toward a Bachelor of Music in voice. “There were no windows and just flood lights to see. But at least the acoustics were good and it was big enough to tape out the stage.”

Theisen served as interim director of opera at the UI in 1998 and periodically visited over the years as a guest director and lecturer before returning to the university as the full-time director of opera in 2013. While there was no way to know it at the time, he guest-directed the last UI opera to be performed at the old Hancher Auditorium before it was destroyed in the 2008 flood. Last spring, he directed the first UI opera to be performed on the new Hancher stage.

Old Voxman had an opera rehearsal room, but Theisen estimates it was about two-thirds the size of the Stark Opera Studio, meaning a full stage couldn’t always be replicated.

“It was decent, and I’ve worked in worse spaces, but this is certainly a huge improvement,” Theisen says.

While the Stark Opera Studio can give students a sense of the actual stage, there’s one thing it can’t replicate: the vastness of an auditorium such as Hancher, which seats 1,800. Theisen tries to get students into the actual performance space early in the rehearsal process. While there, he has them sit in different parts of the auditorium and listen to him perform; then they trade places.

“The studio doesn’t have that scale, and I don’t want it to be a huge revelation when we get in there shortly before the first performance,” Theisen says. “When we’re in the studio, I tell them to forget that there’s a back wall. Instead, they need to play to the other side of the building, or even across Clinton Street.”

Rickerl says students also have to use their imaginations for one other aspect.

“The actual stage will have multiple levels, but the studio floor is flat, so it’s slightly weird to go from flat to all the levels,” Rickerl says. “We have to jump off a platform a bunch of times, but in the studio, we just jump up and over a line taped on the floor.”

UI Opera Theatre doesn’t have a permanent home for its mainstage performances. Historically, students have performed at Hancher every other year, with past performances also held in the the Englert Theatre and, more recently, at CCPA. While the Opera Workshop Scenes, presented at the end of each semester, have been held in the Stark Opera Studio, Theisen says the space has the potential to stage more varied productions. This could include chamber operas, which don’t require a full orchestra.

“As we move forward and choose the repertoire for future seasons, I’ll think about what the best space performance-wise would be,” Theisen says. “Is it Hancher? Is it CCPA, or somewhere else? I sometimes think environmental theater is wonderful; to put something in an unusual space if it’s a space that’s appropriate to the subject matter of the opera. We’re still learning about the Stark Opera Studio, but it has great potential for performances of some sort. It’s an exciting time in that way, to figure that out and give the students as wide-ranging an experience as we can.”