Madame Butterfly

From: New York City, New York. LA Opera: La Traviata (2006, debut). As of the end of 2023/24 season, he had conducted 68 different operas and 469 performances with the company to date. He has been Music Director of the company since 2006 and will serve as in that position until the end of his 20th season in 2026, at which time he will become Conductor Laureate.

Photo: Bonnie Perkinson

Internationally recognized as one of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. Since his 1974 debut with the New York Philharmonic, he has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra, and at many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and filmography, numerous writings, television appearances, and guest speaking engagements, Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized and prolific figures.

He was previously Principal Conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy (2016–20); Principal Conductor of the Paris Opera (1995–2004); General Music Director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989–2003), simultaneously leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (1983–91). He was Music Director of the Ravinia Festival (2005–15), summer home of the Chicago Symphony, and is now Music Director Laureate of the Cincinnati May Festival―the oldest Choral Festival in the United States―where he was Music Director for 37 years (1979–2016), marking one of the longest tenures of any director of an American classical music institution. He also served as Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2021–2023).

He has conducted over 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera since his 1976 debut. He has also conducted at leading opera houses and festivals such as the Wiener Staatsoper, Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Mariinsky Theatre, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

As Music Director of LA Opera, Conlon has led more operas than any other conductor in company history. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include the company’s first Ring cycle; initiating the groundbreaking Recovered Voices series, an ongoing commitment to staging masterpieces of 20th-century European opera suppressed by the Third Reich; spearheading Britten 100/LA, a city-wide celebration honoring the composer’s centennial; and conducting the West Coast premiere of The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a prominent Black composer in 18th-century France.

Conlon is dedicated to bringing composers silenced by the Nazi regime to more widespread attention, often programming this lesser-known repertoire throughout Europe and North America. In 1999 he received the Vienna-based Zemlinsky Prize for his work bringing the composer’s music to a broader audience; in 2013 he was awarded the Roger E. Joseph Prize at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for his efforts to eradicate racial and religious prejudice and discrimination; and in 2007 he received the Crystal Globe Award from the Anti-Defamation League. His work on behalf of silenced composers led to the creation of The OREL Foundation, an invaluable resource on the topic for music lovers, students, musicians, and scholars; the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School; and a recent virtual TEDx Talk titled “Resurrecting Forbidden Music.”

Conlon is deeply invested in the role of music in civic life and the human experience. At LA Opera, his popular pre-performance talks blend musicology, literary studies, history, and social sciences to discuss the enduring power and relevance of opera and classical music. He also frequently collaborates with universities, museums, and other cultural institutions and works with scholars, practitioners, and community members across disciplines. He frequently appears throughout the country as a speaker on a variety of cultural and educational topics.

Conlon’s extensive discography and filmography spans the Bridge, Capriccio, Decca, EMI, Erato, and Sony Classical labels. His recordings of LA Opera productions have received four Grammy Awards, two respectively for John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and for Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Additional highlights include an ECHO Klassik Award-winning recording cycle of operas and orchestral works by Alexander Zemlinsky; a CD/DVD release of works by Viktor Ullmann, which won the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik; and the world-premiere recording of Liszt’s oratorio St. Stanislaus.

Conlon holds four honorary doctorates, was one of the first five recipients of the Opera News Awards, and was distinguished by the New York Public Library as a Library Lion. He received a 2023 Cross of Honor for Science and Art (Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst) from the Republic of Austria, and was named Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana by Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic. He was also named Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and, in 2002, personally accepted France’s highest honor, the Legion d’Honneur, from then-President of the French Republic Jacques Chirac.

Learn more at JamesConlon.com.

From: Montevideo, Uruguay. LA Opera: Madama Butterfly (2024, debut).

The son of Catalan artists, Mario Gas is a prolific and versatile creator, dedicated mainly to acting and stage direction. In 1996 he was awarded the National Theater Prize of Catalonia for Sweeney Todd, and in 2004 he was appointed director of the Spanish Theater of Madrid. His career as a voice actor is very broad and significant, giving voice to actors of the stature of John Malkovich and Ben Kingsley, in films such as Johnny English or Shutter Island. He has performed on camera in films including Cambio de sexo by Vicente Aranda and Amic/Amat by Ventura Pons.

He has been the director of almost 100 productions including The Beauty Queen of Leenane, for which he received the Butaca Prize for the best theater direction and the Max prize for the best theatrical production; as well as Les Troyens and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. His work in opera also includes productions of Madama Butterfly and La Traviata.

Brenna Corner is an international opera and theatre stage director working across the United States, Canada and Europe. She is also the artistic director of Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

Select directing projects include: Il Trovatore (Washington National Opera); Tenor Overboard (Glimmerglass Festival); H.M.S Pinafore (Vancouver Opera); Carmen (Des Moines Metro Opera); Don Giovanni (Seattle Opera); Hansel and Gretel (San Diego Opera and Vancouver Opera); La Bohème (Calgary Opera); Dead Man Walking (Israeli Opera); La Bohème (Dallas Opera); Noye’s Fludd and Scalia/Ginsburg (Glimmerglass Opera); Sweeney Todd (New Orleans Opera); The Flying Dutchman (Cincinnati Opera and Houston Grand Opera); L’Elisir d’Amore (Vancouver Opera); Carmen (Atlanta Opera); and Cendrillon and La Clemenza di Tito (Manitoba Underground Opera).

She was the founding artistic director of Manitoba Underground Opera, which produces a festival of new operatic experiences each August in Winnipeg. She has also worked as a dramatic coach for training programs including The Washington National Opera Cafritz Young Artist Program in Washington D.C.

Brenna made her directorial main stage debut in 2016 with a new production of Hansel and Gretel designed by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop for Vancouver Opera. This production has since toured North America, and was mostly recently produced for San Diego Opera as part of their 2019/20 season. She made her American directorial debut in 2017 with New Orleans Opera, creating a new production of Sweeney Todd.

During the COVID-19 pandemic she created new opera experiences through film including Don Giovanni for Seattle Opera, Carmen: Up-Close and Personal for Vancouver Opera, Dear Mom: a web series for Kentucky Opera and Green Envelopes for Manitoba Underground Opera.

Brenna was a member of the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program with Vancouver Opera and spent two years as the resident director for The Atlanta Opera Studio Artist Program. She is a certified member of Fight Directors Canada and has choreographed many fights for both opera and theatre.

She studied classical music at The University of Manitoba, and she has diplomas in theatre from Grant MacEwan College and The British American Drama Academy.

Learn more at BrennaCorner.com.

From: Erba, Italy. LA Opera: Madama Butterfly (2024, debut).

Ezio Frigerio (1930-2022) was a prominent set designer, recognized for his work in theater, opera, and film. In the 1950s he met Giorgio Strehler who persuaded him to create the stage design for Garcia Lorka’s The House of Bernarda Alba for the Piccolo Teatro in Milan (1955). A year after the debut, he developed his first design for opera, creating costumes for Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio Segreto for the opening of La Piccola Scala. For the Piccolo Teatro he designed also the set and costumes for productions of plays by Shakespeare, Goldoni, Brecht, Ruzant, Zardi, Pirandell and Ferrari.

In 1959 he began designing for film. He worked with Italy’s top directors: Vittorio de Sica (The Condemned of Altona), Liliana Cavani (Francis of Assisi and other films), Bernardo Bertolucci (1900), Jean Paul Rappeneau (Cyrano de Bergerac, for which he won a Silver Ribbon, European Film Award, César, and an Oscar nomination), and Volker Schlöndorff (The Ogre).

Mr Frigerio took up theater design again in 1960 when he became Giorgio Strehler’s permanent collaborator at the Piccolo Teatro. He designed costumes and sets for productions of plays by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Brecht, Beckett, Rizzotto and Sciascia, Cappelli, Pirandello, Wesker, Roversi, Maggi, Bulhakov, Lessing, and De Filippo. He also collaborated with Liliana Cavani on a production of Medea by Cherubini at the Paris Opera, with Strehler on a staging of L’Illusion comique by Corneille and Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris, as well as with Planchon on Molière’s The Miser in Lyon. He was invited as guest designer by Europe’s leading theaters.

The list of his operatic designs is as long. He worked for the world’s most prominent opera houses. He debuted at La Scala with Simon Boccanegra, followed by Falstaff, Lohengrin, Ernani, Don Giovanni, The Queen of Spades and Rigoletto. His also worked for the Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opera, Opéra Bastille, Royal Opera House, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Opera de Lyon, Scottish Opera, Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, Teatro Liceo in Barcelona, San Francisco Opera, and the Salzburg Festival. He created designs for the first stagings of Pederecki’s Paradise Lost: the world premiere at the Lyric Opera in Chicago (1978) and the European premiere at the Teatro alla Scala (1979).

He worked for ballet as well in Paris, Berlin, Marseille, and elsewhere. Together with Roland Petit, he designed Coppélia, The Nutcracker, The Phantom of the Opera, Can-Can, The Miraculous Mandarin and The Blue Angel. With Rudolf Nureyev, he produced Swan Lake, La Bayadère and The Sleeping Beauty.

From: Rome, Italy. LA Opera: Madama Butterfly (2024, debut).

Franca Squarciapino is an Italian costume designer who won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1990 for Cyrano de Bergerac. She has spent much of her career designing costumes for major theaters and opera houses, including the Burgtheater in Vienna, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and Zurich Opera among others.

From: Italy. LA Opera: Madama Butterfly (2024, debut).

Vinicio Cheli studied set and light designing at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Between 1974 and 1989 he worked at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival and the Piccolo Teatro of Milan where he became the lighting assistant for Giorgio Strehler before assuming responsibility for entire productions.

Since 1989 he has worked on opera productions including operas of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Strauss, as well as The Tales of Hoffmann, From the House of the Dead, Fidelio, Norma, Carmen, Erwartung, Turandot, Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia di Lammermoor, Pelléas et Mélisande, Manon, Madama Butterfly, Le Roi de Lahore, L’Elisir d’Amore, Faust, Mireille, Medea, L’Heure espagnole, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Cavalleria Rusticana. He has also worked on plays and ballets including La Bayadère, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

He collaborated with such directors as Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Luca Ronconi, Werner Herzog, Hugo de Ana, Klaus Michael Grüber, Franco Zeffirelli, Luc Bondy, Andrei Konchalovsky and Giancarlo del Monaco at venues including the Rossini Opera Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Festival Baroque in Versailles, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, La Fenice, the Opéra Bastille, the National Theatre of Prague, the Opéra de Monte Carlo, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Opéra Garnier, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Arena di Verona, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, the Teatro Real, the Metropolitan Opera, the Teatro Verdi, the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Chorégies d’Orange and the Royal Opera House of Muscat. He has lectured in theatre lighting at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan and at the Professional School of La Scala.

From: Chiapas, Mexico. LA Opera: prism (2018, debut); The Anonymous Lover (2020, LAO On Now); Breaking the Waves (2021, LAO On Now); Omar (2022); Highway 1, USA (2024); The Dwarf (2024); Madama Butterfly (2024); Hildegard (2025); La Bohème (2025); Falstaff (2026).

Pablo Santiago is an acclaimed lighting designer whose work seamlessly bridges live performance and digital film, transforming stages into immersive and emotionally resonant environments. At LA Opera, Pablo has designed lighting for standout productions including Highway 1, USA, The Dwarf, Madama Butterfly, The Anonymous Lover, the Pulitzer Prize-winning operas Omar and prism, and revival design for Pelléas and Mélisande, bringing innovative visual storytelling that enhances the emotional depth of each work.

Originally from Chiapas, Mexico, Pablo moved to the United States in high school and earned a degree in film from the University of San Diego. Following a 15-year career in major motion pictures, he discovered his true passion for theatrical lighting design and returned to academia, completing his MFA in lighting design at UCLA.

Pablo’s designs are driven by the creation of evocative visual moments that connect deeply with a production’s emotional core, inviting audiences to journey beyond the stage through imagery that sparks the imagination.

His extensive portfolio includes work for renowned venues and organizations such as LA Opera, the Kennedy Center, Teatro Municipal São Paulo, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Boston Lyric Opera, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, BAM-Harvey Theater, Geffen Playhouse and the Hollywood Bowl. He has also collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, showcasing his versatility across genres and scales.

Dedicated to storytelling through light, Pablo continues to push the boundaries of the craft, illuminating narratives that captivate and inspire audiences around the world.

Learn more at PabloSantiagoDesign.com.

From: Glendive, Montana. LA Opera: He became Chorus Director in 2022, after working on over 75 productions as associate chorus director and/or assistant conductor. He is a coach for the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program.

Since joining LA Opera in 2007, he has served as associate chorus director (since 2011) and assistant conductor, and he has worked closely with the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program. Before becoming Chorus Director, he previously directed the LA Opera Chorus for the Plácido Domingo 50th Anniversary Concert (2017) and for The Clemency of Titus (2019). One of his generation’s most respected pianists and vocal coaches, he has collaborated with major opera houses throughout the United States. He has assisted in the preparation of operas and vocal chamber music at the LA Philharmonic. As a pianist, he has partnered with Sondra Radvanovsky, J'Nai Bridges, Eric Owens, Brandon Jovanovich, Rodell Rosel, Dolora Zajick, Kate Lindsey and Susan Graham. He accompanied Joyce DiDonato at the 54th Grammy Awards, the first time the ceremony featured a performance by a classical singer.

In partnership with the Getty Villa and LACMA in Los Angeles and the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., he has curated multimedia recitals which draw connections between the classical vocal repertoire and special exhibits in the museums. He is a frequent collaborator at Wolf Trap Opera as an assistant conductor, chorus master and recitalist. He has been a guest coach at the Opernfestspiele St. Margarethen, in Esterhazy, Austria, and he helped prepare Seattle Opera’s Ring cycle in 2013. He has been a guest faculty member for young artist programs at Utah Opera and Seattle Opera, and he is a part-time lecturer in vocal arts and opera at the University of Southern California. (JeremyMFrank.com)