Kurt-Alexander Zeller began performing in opera, musical theatre, and oratorio in his native Pacific Northwest at age eight. Since then, he has performed throughout the United States, Spain, and Austria, and has appeared on German television, winning acclaim for his memorable characterizations as a singing actor. Among his favorite roles are Don Anchise il Podestà in La finta giardiniera and Monostatos in The Magic Flute by Mozart, Eumete in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Filippo in Haydn’s L’infedeltà delusa, The Minstrel in Once Upon a Mattress, Tschang-Ling in the American premiere of Alexander Zemlinsky’s opera Der Kreidekreis in Cincinnati, and many roles in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, Johann Strauss, and Franz Lehár. His other performance activities have included a tour of Austria in a revue of the music of Kurt Weill, performing weekly “operatic soap operas” on the streets of Portland, Oregon, under a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and two seasons in the company of the Tony® Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Dr. Zeller is in demand as an oratorio soloist and recitalist and has appeared as a concert soloist for the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, New Trinity Baroque, the Terra Nova Consort, the Portland and Salem (OR) Chamber Orchestras, the Southern Crescent Symphony, and many other symphonies and concert series.
He also has served as stage director of Rogue Opera’s productions of La Cenerentola, The Barber of Seville, and Don Pasquale and recently staged a program of sacred opera scenes for the Sacred in Opera Initiative of the National Opera Association at its 2013 national conference in Portland, Oregon. His 2009 staging of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde at Clayton State University, in partnership with schools in the Clayton County Public Schools, was profiled by Opera America’s Education Talk as an example of excellence in opera education and community outreach. He has previously directed Cosi fan tuttè and The Elixir of Love for Peach State Opera.
Dr. Zeller is Director of Opera and Vocal Studies and Coordinator of the Division of Music at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, and is active throughout the country as a vocal adjudicator and clinician. Dr. Zeller trained at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. His graduate studies were at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati, where he was awarded the MM in Voice Performance and a DMA in Voice Performance with cognate studies in Opera Directing and Musicology.