Rick Penning

Tenor Rick Penning has performed with opera companies including Central City Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Opera Omaha, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

Since 1980, Minnesota Opera has been Rick’s opera “home.” Highlights of his work there includes workshops and world premiere productions of Black River, A Death in the Family, Casanova’s Homecoming, The Grapes of Wrath, Silent Night, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Shining. Significantly, a production of Carmen in 1981 brought Rick and his wife, Sandra Henderson, together for the first time. Their sons have also been a part of the Minnesota Opera family: Andrew was seen as the Shepherd Boy in Tosca and as Miles in The Turn of the Screw, and his brother, Christopher, appeared in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in the role of the First Spirit.

Rick Penning has earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, a Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Arts from Luther College.