A control apparatus, in particular for a surgical microscope (8), has a voice operating unit (2) and at least one other operating unit such as a manual operating unit (4), a foot-controlled operating unit (5), and/or an eye-controlled operating unit (7). The control apparatus executes one set of microscope functions via the voice operating unit (2) and another set of microscope functions via the non-voice operating units (4, 5, and/or 7).