- Born
- Died
- David Dichiera was born on April 8, 1935 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA. He was married to Karen VanderKloot. He died on September 18, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
- SpouseKaren VanderKloot(1965 - 1990) (divorced, 2 children)
- He studied music at UCLA, and spend a year researching Baroque opera in Italy on a Fulbright fellowship. He composed art songs and compositions for small ensembles, but his most notable work was "Cyrano," a full-length operatic retelling of Rostand's tragic romance.
- He moved to Detroit from Los Angeles in 1962 to join the music department at Oakland University (then known as Michigan State University-Oakland). He became the director of Overture to Opera, a part of the Detroit Grand Opera Association, which presented annual touring performances of the Metropolitan Opera Company. In 1971, he became artistic director of the Detroit Music Hall (now known as the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts).
- He led the gargantuan effort to turn a derelict 1922 movie theater in downtown Detroit into a European-style opera hall. When the Detroit Opera House opened in 1996, the stage was filled with opera stars including Dame Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.
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