Helen Dewey Reikofski
Helen Dewey Reikofski, who has taught at UNT since 2012, finds her varied adventures, from teaching in Colorado, England, Michigan and Texas, and performing in the U.S., Italy, England, Austria, and other locations, allows her unique perspectives of music and theatre around the world. Recent trips to Paris, Hong Kong, London, Prague, and Honolulu have included attending the theatre, concerts, and visiting museums. Performing in venues from large Fair Park Music Hall, to Dallas’ finely tuned Winspear Opera House, to the tiny McKinney Avenue Contemporary, reveals many facets of area opportunities in performance.
As a core soprano in The Dallas Opera Chorus she is privileged to work alongside some of the most gifted artists in the world, from singers such as Thomas Hampson, Thomas Allen, Denyce Graves, Susan Graham, Stephen Costello, Jay Hunter Morris, Renee Fleming, Ruth Ann Swenson, and directors such as Francesca Zambello and Garnett Bruce, choreographers, stage managers, designers, including the late Peter Hall, conductors Graeme Jenkins, Anthony Barese, Emmanuel Villaume, Alexander Rom, and more. In theatre, contributing to stage craft through supplying the makeup design along with a workshop on techniques for a local high school production and being a guest clinician for area Thespian societies, running props for the Rome Festival Opera production of La bohème and assisting in costuming or working a light hang for a friend's community theater production, regularly augments her continuing appreciation of theatre arts.
With experience formerly as a theatre major and as a music major, and with the extreme good fortune of being a world traveler, she is able to bring a happily eclectic view to teaching English Diction courses MUAG 1905 and Theatre 1340.001 Aesthetics of Theatre throughout the World. She is a member of the International Phonetic Association, American Guild of Musical Artists, and National Association of Teachers of Singing. Professors include Charmaine Copporn, John Gillas, Jeffrey Snider, Charles Harrill, Howard Skinner, Douglas Amman and Julian Reed in voice, acting, and conducting. More than 30 major roles on stage including Abigail Adams/1776 (Little Theatre of the Rockies), Josephine/HMS Pinafore (Cambridge Operatic Society, The Arts Theatre, Cambridge U.K.), Contessa/ Le nozze di Figaro (college-UNC, and Rome Festival 2003), Musetta/La bohème with Bruce Ford (college-TTU and Rome Festival 2004) Marguerite/Faust with Marcus Haddock and Terry Cook (TTU), Jack's Mother/Into the Woods (TWU), Cinderella's Mother/Into the Woods (WaterTower Theatre), The Wizard of Oz with Flying by Foy (Verizon Irving), Anna/The King and I (Marquette, Michigan), Lily/The Secret Garden (Denton and Richardson, Texas), Ensemble/Ragtime (Lyric Stage, Irving), Agnes/I Do! I Do! (First Productions, Denton), Meg/Damn Yankees and Nimue/Camelot (Denton), Mrs. Grose/The Turn of the Screw (UNT). More than 30 professional opera choruses and supporting roles, including Boris Godunov, La bohème, Queen of Spades, Otello, Tosca, Butterfly, Jenufa, Nabucco, Carmen, La traviata, Magic Flute, Turandot, Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana, Merry Widow, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux, Aida, Cosi fan tutte, Aspern Papers, La rondine, Iolantha.
Major roles in theater include Lady Capulet in s Romeo and Juliet, Feste in Twelfth Night, Janet in Murrell's Waiting for the Parade, First wife in The Juniper Tree. Also as a director, music director, stage manager, singer, dialect coach for area theaters such as the University of North Texas Opera Program (2008, L'elisir d'amore), Texas Woman's University (2007, The Fantasticks), Denton Community Theatre (multiple shows), Music Theatre of Denton and Denton Light Opera Company (multiple shows), Lyric Theatre-Irving (Ragtime), WaterTower Theatre-Addison (Into the Woods), Kitchen Dog Theatre (The Juniper Tree), The Dallas Gilbert and Sullivan Company (the inaugural HMS Pinafore).