Merle Puffer, 75; Music Professor Founded the Nevada Opera

Merle E. “Ted” Puffer, 75, the founder of the Nevada Opera and a former chairman of the University of Nevada, Reno, music department, died Wednesday. He had been battling cancer but his family said his death had been unexpected.

Puffer launched Nevada Opera in 1967, serving as artistic director, conductor and vocal coach. He also was a music professor at the university for 28 years.

In 1994, he took early retirement from the university and joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in New York, maintaining homes in Reno and New York.

“He was a genius, both as a musician and as a comedic director,” said Kathleen Kimmel, one of Puffer’s vocal students and the studio director of Nevada Opera’s education and outreach program.

One of Puffer’s goals was to make opera accessible to the general public. He didn’t believe in the cultural elitism the art form is sometimes associated with, and he encouraged English-language translations of classic shows.

“For too long, opera has been a status event where patrons could sleep,” he said in a 1974 Reno Gazette-Journal interview. “I want people to come to the opera because they like it.”