Tannhäuser

Admired by the New York Times for her “plush-voiced, impressive soprano,” Sara Jakubiak has captivated audiences with her rich chameleon voice and committed performances. In 2018 she created the role of Heliane in Christof Loy’s universally hailed production of Das Wunder der Heliane at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Marc Albrecht conducting. Other recent highlights include Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Kirill Petrenko at Bavarian State Opera, Agathe in Der Freischütz with Christian Thielemann at Semperoper Dresden and portrayals of Tatiana in Eugene Onegin and Marta in The Passenger in new productions at Oper Frankfurt. Other roles have included Marie in Wozzeck at English National Opera, Polina in The Gambler at Dutch National Opera, Marietta in Die tote Stadt at Hamburg State Opera, Elsa in Johannes Erath’s production of Lohengrin with costumes by Christian Lacroix at Graz Oper and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus with Zubin Mehta and the Israeli Philharmonic.

Her schedule for the 2020/21 season included both Venus and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and a revival of Das Wunder der Heliane with the Deutsche Oper Berlin (both cancelled, along with the originally planned 2020 production of Tannhäuser in Los Angeles). Still on the schedule (as of January 2021), she will perform the title role of Francesca da Rimini in a new Christof Loy production with the Deutsche Oper Berlin in March 2021. In June of 2021, she will make her Vienna State Opera debut as Elsa in Lohengrin.

Performances originally scheduled for the 2019/20 season included house debuts of Chrysothemis in a new production of Elektra by Christof Loy conducted by Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden and also in a Robert Carsen production conducted by Marc Albrecht at Palau de les Artes in Valencia, Weinberger’s Schwanda at the Komische Oper Berlin, and concert performances included Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Francois Xavier Roth, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with the London Philharmonic with Edward Gardner, excerpts from Tannhauser as Elisabeth with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons and excerpts from Die Walküre as Sieglinde at the Verbier Festival with Gianandrea Noseda. She reprised Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Semperoper Dresden with Christian Thielemann.

During the 2018/19 season, Ms. Jakubiak sang Marietta in a new production of Die tote Stadt at the Komische Oper directed by Robert Carsen. She joined Kirill Petrenko in a reprise of her role as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with the Bavarian State Opera. She will sang Elsa in Theater Bonn’s new production of Lohengrin. Ms. Jakubiak sang Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Symphony Orchestra Vlaanderen with Dmitri Jurowski. Other concert performances included the U.S. premiere of Martinu’s Julietta with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Janácek’s Glagolotic Mass with Hallé Orchestra and Erwartung with Bergen Philharmonic, both with Edward Gardiner. She also made a studio recording of Erwartung with the Chandos label.

Ms. Jakubiak distinguished herself in a wide range of roles while a fest singer at Oper Frankfurt (2014–2018). These roles included Prima Donna in Ariadne auf Naxos, Marie in Die tote Stadt, Lina in Stiffelio, Polina in The Gambler, Marie in Der Diktator, Alice Ford in Falstaff, the Goose Girl in Königskinder and Freia in Das Rheingold. Earlier in her career she portrayed Dede in City Opera’s New York premiere production of A Quiet Place and premiered the role of Cathy in Minnesota Opera’s production of Bernard Hermann’s Wuthering Heights.

Ms Jakubiak can be seen on DVD as Agathe in Der Freischütz (Thielemann/Kohler) and a forthcoming Naxos Records release of Das Wunder der Heliane (Albrecht /Loy). She can be heard on the Grammy-nominated Chandos recording of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass (Gardiner/Bergen Philharmonic) and as Fiora in Montemezzi’s L’Amore dei Tre Re (Borowicz/Polish Radio Symphony).

Sara Jakubiak is of Polish and German decent and originally hails from Bay City, Michigan. She was a star fast-pitch softball player, competing in tournaments throughout the United States and won two State Championships. Sara holds master degrees from Yale University and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

SaraJakubiak.com

A leading soloist at Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, Yulia Matochkina has made a name for herself as one of Russia’s foremost mezzo-sopranos. Her extensive repertoire consists of nearly 50 operatic and concert roles, including Amneris in Aida, Eboli in Don Carlo, the Princess of Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur, Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust, Carmen, Didon in Les Troyens, Dalila in Samson et Dalila), Venus in Tannhäuser, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Kundry in Parsifal, Polina in The Queen of Spades, Marfa in Khovanshchina, Lyubasha in The Tsar’s Bride and Clara d’Almanza in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery as well as the mezzo and contralto parts in the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler’s Second and Eighth Symphonies and Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette.

Yulia Matochkina came to international prominence in 2015, when she won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She performs regularly at the Moscow Easter Festival and at St Petersburg’s Stars of the White Nights Festival and has also appeared at the Edinburgh and Verbier Festivals and at the BBC Proms in London. Guest engagements have additionally taken her to major international venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Teatre del Liceu and Auditori in Barcelona, the Munich Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Rome Opera, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and the RAI Auditorium in Rome.

As a member of the Mariinsky company, Yulia Matochkina has toured Austria, Finland, Sweden, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States as well as Japan and China.

Morris Robinson is considered one the most interesting and sought-after basses performing today.

Grammy Award-winning baritone Lucas Meachem, one of the most accomplished, in-demand singers of the moment, continues to captivate audiences worldwide with his “earnest, appealing baritone” (The New York Times). The “rock star of opera” (Opera Pulse) began his 2022/23 season with performances as the title role in Don Giovanni at Ravinia Festival, followed by Escamillo in Carmen with Canadian Opera Company and Opéra National de Paris, Marcello in La Bohème with Bayerische Staatsoper, and Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro with LA Opera. Rounding out the season with a return to Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at San Francisco Opera, other highlights include Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at Dallas Opera, and guest soloist appearances with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Classical Tahoe and San Francisco Opera.

Celebrated by Opera News as a “masterful musician” with an “instrument of striking finish, smooth and solid throughout its range,” Meachem’s recent performances include Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at Royal Opera House, Marcello in La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, and the title role in Nabucco at Oper im Steinbruch. Additionally, Meachem’s Teatro alla Scala debut in Massenet’s Thaïs was acclaimed as the “most impressive performance of the evening” (Opera Online), with his portrayal of Athanaël, alongside Marina Rebeka’s Thaïs, described as “possibly one of the great duos experienced at La Scala in recent decades” (Beckmesser).

When Covid struck and performances were canceled abruptly, Meachem was one of the first classical musicians to live stream a recital from the opera stage, just days after lockdown on March 23, 2020. In a recent profile with Opera News, Meachem revealed that, in March 2020, he felt at loose ends. With debut performances of Rodrigo in Don Carlos at Dallas Opera indefinitely postponed, he and his wife, pianist Irina Meachem, arranged a live-streamed program from the Winspear Opera House. The concert, recorded on smartphones with just two other people in the room, amassed more than 25,000 views on Instagram and Facebook, setting the standard for digital performances over the pandemic. While theaters were dark, Meachem continued to perform on the physical and digital stage, singing his “signature role for good reason” (Opera News) as Figaro in San Francisco Opera’s The Barber of Seville for an innovative “drive-in” experience. Meachem then filmed a movie version of Pagliacci as the romantic lead Silvio with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, set within their own opera house.

Named the winner of San Francisco Opera’s inaugural “Emerging Star of the Year” Award in 2016, other notable performances in Meachem’s American career include marking his 50th role debut as Athanaël in Thaïs (Minnesota Opera), Chorèbe in Les Troyens, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Valentin in Faust at Chicago Lyric Opera; General Rayevsky in Prokofiev’s War and Peace, Silvio in Pagliacci, and Mercutio in Roméo and Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera; Don Giovanni with Chicago Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera, and Cincinnati Opera;  Germont in La Traviata at Washington National Opera; The Barber of Seville at San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, Houston Grand Opera and LA Opera, where he also gave his Grammy Award-winning performance of Figaro in The Ghosts of Versailles.

A regular performer across Europe, Meachem has performed the title role in The Barber of Seville with the Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, and Den Norske Opera; the title role in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival and Semperoper Dresden; the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd at Opéra national de Paris; as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Royal Opera House; Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan under the baton of Seiji Ozawa; the title role in Eugene Onegin with Komische Oper Berlin and Opéra national de Montpellier; Zurga in The Pearl Fishers at Bilbao Opera; Escamillo in Carmen with Teatro Regio di Torino; and with the Teatro Real de Madrid in the world premiere of José Maria Sánchez-Verdú's El Viaje a Simorgh, Frank/Fritz in Die Tote Stadt, as well as Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride.

Meachem’s first solo album, Shall We Gather, released in September 2021 under Rubicon Records and featuring his wife, Irina Meachem, at the piano, was praised by BBC Music Magazine as having “vibrant and committed performances,” with Meachem delivering “a heartbreakingly beautiful performance.” According to The New Yorker, the album of American songs is “a plea for togetherness in a divided country. Meachem’s voice—a substantial and propulsive lyric baritone with pillowy edges—records beautifully.”

In July 2020, the Meachems founded Perfect Day Music Foundation (PDMF). The foundation aims to represent inclusivity and diversity of people today by using classical music as a relevant medium to address current issues through a traditional art form. The Foundation’s annual competition, which utilizes social media in its application process to raise awareness for new compositions, centers around a yearly theme that highlights an important demographic of classical music.

Born in North Carolina, Lucas Meachem studied music at Appalachian State University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University before becoming an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera.

Learn more at LucasMeachem.com

Hailed by Opera News for his “comedic high jinks” and “first-rate singing,” Philip Cokorinos was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1985. He went on to make his Met debut during the 1987/88 season. Since then, he appeared in more than 400 performances of 40 operas at the Met, including “Live from The Met” telecasts of Don Giovanni; the world premiere of The Ghosts of Versailles; and the Met premieres of Sly, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Gambler, and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk, to name a few. He appeared many times in their productions of the standard repertoire including Tosca, La Bohème, The Girl of the Golden West, La Traviata, Adriana Lecouvreur, La Rondine, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Macbeth, Manon, Don Carlo, Tosca, The Barber of Seville, Manon Lescaut, and The Marriage of Figaro, under the baton of Maestro James Levine. His recent appearances at this esteemed house include several Met Live in HD broadcasts including Manon, The Girl of the Golden West, The Nose, Werther, Manon Lescaut, The Marriage of Figaro, La Bohème and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. 

In the 2021/22 season, his Metropolitan Opera appearances include the Wigmaker in Ariadne auf Naxos. In the 2022/23 season, his appearances there include Benoit/Alcindoro in La Bohème.

Mr. Cokorinos recently performed as the Second Nazarene in Salome with the Spoleto Festival USA and as the Grandfather in the U.S. premiere of Martinů’s Julietta with American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Elsewhere in recent seasons, he performed the title role in Don Pasquale with Opera Santa Barbara and Anchorage Opera; performed the roles of Archibaldo in L’Amore dei Tre Re and the Priest in La Campana Sommersa and debuted the role of Riolobo in Florencia en el Amazonas, all with New York City Opera; sang Daland in The Flying Dutchman with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; and added Swallow in Peter Grimes to his many roles with Chautauqua Opera, which include Méphistophélès in Faust, Oroveso in Norma, the Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen, and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor. With Opera Colorado, he sang Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola and the Sacristan in Tosca; with the Spoleto Festival USA, Coley in Flora and Capellio in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi; and with Central City Opera, Don Marco in The Saint of Bleecker Street, Pandolfe in Cendrillon, and his most frequently performed role: Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Additional North American engagements include Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette with Opera Carolina and Nashville Opera; Rocco in Fidelio with Palm Beach Opera; and Timur in Turandot with Florida Grand Opera. Canadian appearances include Banquo in Macbeth with Edmonton Opera and Basilio in The Barber of Seville with Calgary Opera and Opera Lyra Ottawa; Don Alfonso in Cosí fan tutte with Atlanta Opera, and multiple productions with Glimmerglass Opera, including Il Matrimonio Segreto, Le comte Ory, The Barber of Seville, and La Finta Giardiniera.

On the concert stage, Mr. Cokorinos’ notable symphonic appearances include Haydn’s Creation and Händel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall, and Herod in Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ telecast with NHK Symphony in Tokyo. He appeared in concert with the Minnesota Orchestra; Cincinnati May Festival; Spoleto Festival USA; Spokane Symphony; The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Jacksonville Symphony; The Little Orchestra Society of New York; and in several performances with Opera Orchestra of New York including Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, Raimondo in Wagner’s Rienzi, Rochefort in Anna Bolena, Astarote in Armida, Cardinal de Brogni in La Juive, the Prefect in Linda di Chamounix, Capellio in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Sarastro in The Magic Flute, staged in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

His discography includes two works of Hector Berlioz with the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit: Herod in L’Enfance du Christ and Wagner in Huit Scenes de Faust, both released on DECCA. He can also be heard on the world-première recording of Stephen Paulus’ oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vanska, and the Grammy Award-winning recording of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles with LA Opera.

His most recent engagements include Zuniga in Carmen with San Diego Opera and Méphistophélès in Faust with Valley Opera & Performing Arts. (COVID cancellations included a scheduled return to LA Opera as the Physician in Pelléas et Mélisande.)

In 2018, he debuted with the Opéra National du Rhin (Strasbourg) in Mahagonny Songspiel and The Seven Deadly Sins. Other recent performances include Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro with Utah Opera, Ferrando in Il Trovatore at Knoxville Opera, and appearances as Scarpia in Tosca and Father Trulove in The Rake's Progress with Pacific Opera Project. He has performed Porgy in Porgy and Bess with the Munich Philharmonic, Castleton Festival, Boston Symphony Orchestra and on tour throughout the United States and Europe.

Other appearances includes Tom in Un Ballo in Maschera with New Orleans Opera and Joe in Show Boat with Fresno Grand Opera and with Rockwell Productions in Vancouver. He made an important international debut with the Munich Philharmonic with Maestro Maazel. He made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut in Anthony Davis' Amistad, creating the role of Burnah in the highly acclaimed world premiere. With the New York City Opera, he appeared as Leporello in Don Giovanni, Colline in La Bohème, Zuniga and Morales in Carmen and Dr. Grenvil and Baron Douphol in La Traviata.

Erica Petrocelli was a member of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program from 2018 to 2020. Her additional company appearances include Annina in La Traviata (2019), the First Lady in The Magic Flute (2019) and both Thetis and Eurydice in Stefano Landi's The Death of Orpheus (2020).

She recently completed her tenure as a studio member with Opernhaus Zürich. Her engagements for the 2022/23 season include guest appearances with Opernhaus Zürich as Musetta in La Bohème and the First Lady in The Magic Flute, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah with James Conlon and the Baltimore Symphony, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with the Ravinia Festival, also with James Conlon.

In the 2021/22 season, Ms. Petrocelli performed Pamina in The Magic Flute at Opera Theater of St. Louis, and also joined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for Mozart’s Requiem. As a Studio member in Zürich, she performed Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Delia in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, she also covered the title role in Arabella and Stella in The Tales of Hoffmann.

In the 2019/20 season, she made her principal debut at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, as Micaëla in Carmen.

Since his debut that year with La Traviata, he has conducted 66 different operas and more than 420 performances to date with the company. Highlights of recent seasons include the 2020 company premiere of The Anonymous Lover (L'Amant Anonyme) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and the 2021 company premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex.

(Click here to visit James Conlon's Corner, where you can find essays, videos and conversations he has created especially for LA Opera.)

One of today’s most versatile and respected conductors, James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. He has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra since his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1974. He has conducted more than 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous essays and commentaries, frequent television appearances and guest speaking engagements, Mr. Conlon is one of classical music’s most recognized interpreters.

In September 2021, he became Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

He has been 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).

Mr. Conlon has served as the Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony (2005–15), 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. As a guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he has led more than 270 performances since his 1976 debut. He has also conducted at leading opera houses and festivals including the Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Mariinsky Theatre, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

As LA Opera's Music Director since 2006, Mr. Conlon has led more performances than any other conductor in the company’s history—to date, over 420 performances of more than 60 different operas by over 20 composers. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include conducting the company’s first Ring cycle, recently re-aired in a marathon webcast celebrating the performances’ tenth anniversary; initiating the groundbreaking Recovered Voices series, an ongoing commitment to staging masterpieces of 20^th-century European opera that were suppressed by the Third Reich; and spearheading Britten 100/LA, a city-wide celebration honoring the centennial of that composer’s birth. During the period in which Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was closed due to the pandemic, Mr. Conlon conducted LA Opera’s live-streamed, socially distanced production—staged at the Colburn School—of The Anonymous Lover by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a prominent Black composer in 18^th-century France. The performance was presented as an online-only event in fall 2020 and marked the work’s West Coast premiere. The Pavilion reopened in June 2021 with Mr. Conlon conducting the company premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, with which LA Opera became the first major American opera company to perform live in its own theater since the coronavirus outbreak. The performance was subsequently released online for at-home viewing. During LA Opera’s 2021/22 season, Mr. Conlon conducts three operas long absent from the company’s repertory: Verdi’s Il Trovatore, which opens the season; Wagner’s Tannhäuser; and Verdi’s Aida. He also conducts John Neumeier’s ballet adaptation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, performed at LA Opera for the first time.

Ian Judge first joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1975. His productions there include The Wizard of Oz, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour's Lost, Twelfth Night, A Christmas Carol, The Relapse, Troilus and Cressida and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Theatrical credits elsewhere include The Rivals and King Lear at the Old Vic; Banana Ridge, One For The Pot and Peter Pan at the Shaw Festival in Canada; Macbeth for the Sydney Theatre Company; and Henry VIII and Love for Love for Chichester Festival Theatre.

Opera repertoire includes Madama Butterfly, Tosca, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Carlo, Roméo et Juliette, Tannhäuser and The Stigmatized (LA Opera); The Tales of Hoffmann (Sydney, Houston, Opera Pacific); Faust, The Merry Widow, Cav/Pag, La Belle Vivette, Don Quixote, Mefistofele (English National Opera, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires); The Flying Dutchman, Simon Boccanegra (Royal Opera House Covent Garden); Simon Boccanegra (Washington, Dallas); Macbeth (Cologne) and Faust, Tosca, Macbeth, Boris Godunov, Acis and Galatea and Attila (Opera North); Norma (Scottish Opera, Buhnen Graz); La Bohème (Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg), The Mikado (Savoy Theatre), Salome (New York City Opera); Falstaff (Theatre du Châtelet in Paris); and Tannhäuser (Madrid).

IanJudge.com

Heralded by Opera News for her “absorbing, provocative staging,” Louisa Muller made her European debut in 2019, directing a critically-acclaimed new production of The Turn of the Screw for Garsington Opera. In the 2019/20 season, she returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct Madama Butterfly, in addition to returning to the Metropolitan Opera roster for Akhnaten. Previously, she debuted with Minnesota Opera and LA Opera, for La Traviata and Don Carlo, respectively, and returned to the Metropolitan Opera for its revival of Don Giovanni. She also returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to stage the Rising Stars Concert.

She received rich critical acclaim for her 2017 staging of Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, which the New York Times called “riveting…a remarkable evening of music theater” and named among its list of the Best Classical Music Performances of the year. Since 2015, she has been a frequent and beloved presence at Wolf Trap Opera, where she has directed new productions of Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, called “a dazzling thing all around” by the Washington Post; The Rape of Lucretia, with the Washington Post again heralding her work as “an intense wallop of a well-sung production;” Tosca, praised as “searing summer verismo” by Washington Classical Review; and Roméo et Juliette, “the drama taut” and with “compelling stage pictures,” reported the Washington Post.

As a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s directing staff, Ms. Muller has helmed previous revivals of Don Giovanni as well as Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci and L'elisir d'amore. At the famed company, she has assisted directors such as David McVicar, Robert Lepage, Robert Carsen, Bartlett Sher, Michael Grandage, Stephen Wadsworth, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, John Copley, and Giancarlo del Monaco.

Previously she was a staff director at Houston Grand Opera, where she prepared alternate casts of La Bohème and Beatrice and Benedict and directed Theofanidis's The Refuge, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly at Miller Outdoor Theatre. She has also served on the directing staffs of Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Opera North (USA).

Invested in the dramatic training for singers, she has been a faculty member of the Scuola di Belcanto, Urbania and has worked regularly with the artists in the renowned Houston Grand Opera Studio. She has served as a guest dramatic coach at the National Opera Studio in London, Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artists’ Vocal Academy, Wolf Trap Opera Studio, Lawrence University, and the University of Texas at Brownsville, as well as directing opera scenes for the Santa Fe Opera Houston Grand Opera Studio, and Wolf Trap Opera Studio.

She holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a citizen of the United States and Germany and makes her home in Vienna.

Gottfried Pilz has worked as a stage and costume designer for the opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, London, New York and Moscow, collaborating with esteemed directors including John Dew (Les Huguenots at the Deutsche Oper Berlin), Götz Friedrich (the Ring cycle at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki), and William Friedkin (LA Opera's double bill of Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Gianni Schicchi).

In 1993 he made his directorial debut with The Queen of Spades at LA Opera. Subsequent productions include the German premiere of Saint François d'Assise at the Leipzig Opera, Die Walkure in St. Petersburg and In hora mortis / The Book with Seven Seals at the Bielefeld Theater. Other engagements have taken him to Madrid, the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera. His set designs for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich include Slaughterhouse 5, The Prince of Homburg, Falstaff and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Misty Ayres has been artistically designing and creating new worlds from a very early age. Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the daughter of a naval officer and the niece of a professional costume designer, Ms. Ayres has interwoven her early multicultural experiences into the fabric of her life. While still an undergraduate at University of Cameron, Ms. Ayres was uniquely selected to design the shows Private Eyes and Medea, prompting a lifelong passion of integrating her artistic skills and sharp business mind. Ms. Ayres carried her BA in Costume Design Education all the way to Los Angeles for the opportunity to showcase her gifts for global audiences: The World Goes 'Round for Chance Theater and Son of Semele for The Tower, to name a few. Ms. Ayres is most proud to have been able to call LA Opera "home" for the last 16 years. 

Through this symbiotic relationship, Ms. Ayres has been afforded to fully utilize her gifts and expression in numerous opportunities, such as, representing LA Opera's highly sought-after expertise abroad in distinguished theaters across Europe and Asia. Although Ms. Ayres is frequently hand selected by world-renowned costume designers for her ability to fabricate creative visions into stage life, she feels equally zealous in her development of LA Opera Educational Department's Opera Tales, Figaro’s American Adventure, Brundibar and The Prospector.  Ms. Ayres is so excited to once again be part of the continuation of the untold story of the human heart in this profound and innovative production of Tannhauser.  

Marcus Doshi is an international theater maker who designs lighting and sets for theatre, opera, and dance, and collaborates with artists and architects on a wide array of non-performance-based work. His work is known both for its rhythmic and visual style and for its dramaturgical integration with the source material. He is a frequent collaborator with NYC’s Theatre for a New Audience and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He is also a tenured Associate Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, where he teaches design in the MFA programs and is Associate Chair of the department.

Projects with Theatre for a New Audience include A Winter’s Tale, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Father, A Doll’s House, King Lear (2014 Henry Hewes Design Award nomination), The Taming of the Shrew,  Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Othello (2009 Lucille Nortel Award for Outstanding Lighting Design nomination), all directed by Arin Arbus, The Broken Heart, directed by Selina Cartmell, and Hamlet  (2009 Drama Desk for Best Lighting Design of a Play nomination and 2009 Henry Hewes Design Award nomination) directed by David Esbjornsen.

Elsewhere in New York, Linda Vista on Broadway at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theatre, directed by Dexter Bullard; Pass Over at Lincoln Center Theatre, then on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre, directed by Danya Taymor , Party People directed by Liesl Tommy at The Public Theatre (2017 AUDELCO ‘Viv’ Award Nomination); Les Mamelles de Tiresias and Der Kaiser von Atlantis in double bill at Juilliard; The Petrol Station with Sulayman Al Bassam at the Gallatin School;  A Boy and His Soul at the Vineyard Theatre; Things of Dry Hours for New York Theatre Workshop; the world premiere of Queens Boulevard (The Musical), The First Breeze of Summer (2008 AUDELCO ‘Viv’ for Best Lighting Design) and My Children! My Africa! at the Signature Theatre; The Glass Cage and What the Public Wants at the Mint; the American Premiere of Terrorism for The New Group & The Play Company; Charade and |underscore|, choreographed by Jonah Bokaer; The Obie Award winning productions of Molly’s Dream for Soho Rep and Menopausal Gentleman at the Ohio Theatre; the Civilians’ [I Am] Nobody’s Lunch (International Tour) and Patriot Acts: An American Vaudeville; Impermanent Collection, Without, Mass Particle Number One, It’s My Party and Reusable Parts/Endless Love with Moving Theatre, among many others.

Projects at Steppenwolf include the premieres of Tracy Letts’s Linda Vista, and Mary Page Marlowe, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, the premiere of David Rabe’s Visiting Edna, also directed by Shapiro, Familiar and Pass Over (including the filmed version by Spike Lee streaming on Amazon), both directed by Danya Taymor, BLKS,  You Got Older, and the premiere of Lindiwe.

Elsewhere in Chicago, La Traviata for The Lyric Opera of Chicago directed by Arin Arbus, Measure for Measure directed by Robert Falls & Upstairs Concierge directed by JK Sanchez at the Goodman Theatre; Much Ado About Nothing directed by Marti Maraden at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; and The Importance of Being Earnest, Travesties, & The Secret Garden, all directed by Charles Newell, at Court Theatre.

World-wide, his work includes Rituel pour une Metamorphose for La Comédie Française, Paris, where he is said to be the first American to design lighting for the company, a production co-realized with Théâtre de Gymnase – Marseille and Marseille-Provence 2013 Capital Européenne de la Culture; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the National Theater of Sarajevo, National Theater of Mostar, Bijeljina Center for Culture, National Theater of Tuzla, Jajce House of Culture, Bosnian National Theater of Zenica, National Theater of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina;  Svadba for the 2015 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, FR, Angers Nantes Opera, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, and Festival Ljubljana, Les Mamelles de Tiresias for Aldeburgh Music, Aldeburgh, UK, 2013 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, FR, La Monnaie, Brussels, BE , Dutch National Opera & Ballet, NL, and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, SP; La Traviata for Canadian Opera Company (2017 Dora Mavor Moore Award Nomination); Sabab Theatre’s The Speaker’s Progress developed in production at al-Maidan Cultural Centre in Kuwait and Theatre Tournesol in Beirut, Lebanon and subsequently playing the 2011 Next Wave Festival at BAM, Arts Emerson in Boston, the 2012 Carthage Festival in Tunis, Tunisia and D-CAF Festival in Cairo, Egypt and In The Eruptive Mode which premiered at the 2013 Sydney Festival; Most of the Boys at the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio, London; The Devil & Mr. Punch with Improbable at the Barbican in London; the international tours of the Khmer Arts Ensemble’s Pamina Deviand The Lives of Giants, both choreographed by Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, with whom he also designed Samritechak, which was presented to world audiences as part of the 2003 Bienalle di Venezia in Venice, Italy; scenery and lighting for Where Elephants Weep at the Chenla Theatre in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Don Giovanni and Falstaff at the Théâtre Municipal de Castres, France; [I Am] Nobody’s Lunch for the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe & subsequent transfer to the Soho Theatre, London; director Peter Sellar’s production of The Children Of Herakles for the 2004 Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, Austria & the Holland Festival 2004, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and the India tour of U.S. based Thresh Company’s full length evening of contemporary dance Strings Unattached, playing the Delhi Habitat Centre, the Museum Theatre in Chennai, The Darpana Academy of Performing Arts and the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai, and the subsequent presentation at the Joyce Soho, NYC.

His designs for works with music include La Traviata, directed by Lousia Muller at Minnesota Opera; La Traviata, directed by Arin Arbus, and Giulio Cesare, directed by James Robinson, at Houston Grand Opera; Orphic Moments for Master Voices and La Calisto for Juilliard Opera, both directed by Zack Winokur; Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera directed by Ron Daniels; El Niño at Spoleto Festival USA 2015 directed by John La Bouchardière; The Soldier’s Tale, La Voix Humane, El Cimmarón, Der Kaiser Von Atlantis & Il Ritorno d’Ulisee in Patria for artistic director Ted Huffman at the Greenwich Music Festival; The Blue Rider: Kandinsky and Music for the Guggenhiem’s Works & Process at the Miller theatre and  In the Garden of Dreams at the Cullen Theatre, Houston, both conceived of and directed by Sarah Rothenberg and produced by Da Camera of Houston; Nico Muhly’s Tell The Way for St Anne’s Warehouse; The Hildegurls: Electronic Ordo Virtutum for the Lincoln Center Festival; Elektra with Seattle Opera; Hell (the opera) for PS 122, the premiere of Don Imbroglio at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, La Bohème for Boston Lyric Opera, and work with Florentine Opera, Virginia Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Baltimore Opera.

In the United States, numerous designs for theatre at such theatres as Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Love’s Labour’s Lost and Indecent both directed by Shana Cooper, Party People! directed by Liesl Tommy, and The Cocoanuts directed by David Ivers, and ), Intiman (The Skin of Our Teeth directed by Bartlett Sher), Huntington Theatre Company (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom directed by Liesl Tommy), Yale Repertory Theatre (The Imaginary Invalid directed by Mark Rucker, Iphigenia at Aulis directed by Rebecca Taichman & Eclipsed directed by Liesl Tommy), Hartford Stage, Company (A Raisin in the Sun directed by Seret Scott, I Am My Own Wife & Mistakes Were Made both directed by Jeremy Cohen, and The Whipping Man directed by Hana Sharif), The Children’s Theatre (Last Stop on Market Street directed by Henry Godinez), Dallas Theatre Center (Twelfth Night, Big Love, My Fair Lady, Of Mice and Men, & Hamlet all directed by Richard Hamburger, with Leon Rabin Award for Outstanding Lighting Design nominations for the latter two), TheatreWorks Hartford, Barrington Stage, Geva Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Triad Stage, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, City Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, The Wagon Wheel Theatre,  Milwaukee Shakespeare, Milwaukee Repertory, Great River Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Tooth & Nail Theater, Berkeley Repertory, California Shakespeare, Sacramento Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre, among others.

In the art & architecture world, Marcus has designed the lighting for Karaoke Ice, a project by artists Marina Zurkow, Katie Salen, and Nancy Nowacek, which premiered at the 2006 ISEA/ZeroOne Festival, San Jose, CA, in 2006 and subsequently at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in 2007 (www.karaokeice.com) as well as Above & Below by artist Maya Lin at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. With Matter Practice, he designed the exhibition lighting for the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s 2006 National Design Triennial – Design Life Now, Dormitorium: Film Decors by the Quay Bros. at the Kellen Gallery of the Parsons New School for Design, and With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Chinese in America, NYC. Marcus also consulted on the renovation of the stage lighting system for the Harry Dejur Playhouse at the Henry Street Settlement in NYC and was resident special events designer for the Park Avenue Armory where projects included production designs for the Park Avenue Armory’s 2012 Chairman’s Circle Dinner, Citibank Private Banking 200 Year Gala, the Park Avenue Armory’s 5th Anniversary Gala, and lighting design for the 1st Floor Historic Rooms.

In 2001 Marcus was honored with the USITT Barbizon Award for Lighting Design. In 2002, his essay “Edward Gordon Craig: Towards the Art of the Theater of the Future – Influences and Development of the Über-Marionette and Kinetic Stage” was published in the journal ‘Thinking About Theater and Film,’ edited by James Fisher. And, in 2003, he was chosen as a recipient of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Program with which he pursued diverse avenues of study; from using musical terminology as a language for lighting designers to the emerging stylistic influence of contemporary Asian-Indian arts on American Theatre.

In his early career, Marcus extensively assisted senior Lighting Designers Jennifer Tipton and Robert Wierzel. With Ms. Tipton theatre and many dances including work with American Ballet Theatre, The Paul Taylor Dance Company, and Pick Up Performance Company; he was also the assistant for Ms. Tipton’s lighting of Artist Robert Gober’s American Pavillion at the 2001 Bienalle di Venezia and her light installation Pandora’s Door which was commissioned and created specifically for the 2006 National Design Triennial: Inside Design Now as well as many other projects. With Mr. Wierzel, numerous theatrical and opera endeavors including work with Chicago Opera Theatre and  Opera de Montréal.

Prior to joining the faculty of Northwestern, Marcus was a Guest Critic for Hunter College, City University of New York, Wabash College, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the Yale University School of Drama. He has led lighting workshops for performers and designers with the Allaince Française in Chennai, India, the Indo-American Arts Council’s Festival of Indian Dance, and al-Maidan Cultural Centre in Kuwait.  He was also sponsored by the Asian Cultural Council, Kelola, The Jakarta Arts Council, and Salihara to teach a workshop on light and movement for choreographers and designers in Jarkarta, Indonesia.

In 1997 Marcus graduated from Wabash College, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, magna cum laude and with distinction on comprehensive exams with a bachelor of arts degree in theater with a minor in Art. His work at Wabash was highly praised: he was awarded the Kenneth Kloth Design Prize three years in a row, the Ermine C. Leonardis award for Dramaturgy, the Stephens-Hall Scholarship, and the Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Excellence in a Creative Endeavour for his scenic and projection design of The Visit. In 2000, he graduated with a master of fine arts in Stage Design from the Yale University School of Drama.

Learn more at MarcusDoshi.com.

Hailed for his adventurous and bold artistic leadership, and for eliciting technically precise and expressive performances from musicians, Grammy Award-winner Grant Gershon celebrated his 20th anniversary as Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in the 2021/22 season. The Los Angeles Times has said the Master Chorale "has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon,” a reflection on both his programming and performances. 
 
During his tenure, Gershon has led more than 200 Master Chorale performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in programs encompassing a wide range of choral music, from the early pillars of the repertoire to contemporary compositions. He has led world premiere performances of major works by John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Eve Beglarian, Billy Childs, Gabriela Lena Frank, Ricky Ian Gordon, Shawn Kirchner, David Lang, Morten Lauridsen, Steve Reich, Ellen Reid, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Chinary Ung, among many others.  

Gershon is committed to increasing representation in the choral repertoire, and in 2020 he announced that the Master Chorale will reserve at least 50% of each future season for works by composers from historically excluded groups in classical music. 
 
In July 2019, Gershon and the Master Chorale opened the famed Salzburg Festival with Lagrime di San Pietro, directed by Peter Sellars. The Salzburg performances received standing ovations and rave reviews from such outlets as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called Lagrime “painfully beautiful” (Schmerzliche schön). Gershon and the Master Chorale debuted the production in Los Angeles in 2016 and began touring the world with it in 2018. In its review of the premiere of Lagrime, the Los Angeles Times noted that the production “is a major accomplishment for the Master Chorale, which sang and acted brilliantly. It is also a major accomplishment for music history.”

He was the Resident Conductor of LA Opera from 2012 to 2022, and in this capacity conducted the West Coast premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in November 2018. He made his acclaimed debut with the company with La Traviata in 2009 and has subsequently conducted productions including Il Postino, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Florencia en el Amazonas, Wonderful Town, The Tales of Hoffmann and The Pearl Fishers. In 2017, he made his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West directed by Peter Sellars, who also wrote the libretto, and made his Dutch National Opera debut with the same opera in March 2019. Gershon and Adams have an enduring friendship and professional relationship which began 27 years ago in Los Angeles when Gershon played keyboards in the pit for Nixon in China at LA Opera. Since then, Gershon has led the world premiere performances of Adams’ theater piece I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, premiered his two-piano piece Hallelujah Junction (with Gloria Cheng), and conducted performances of Harmonium, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, El Niño, The Chairman Dances, and choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer. 

In New York, Gershon has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at the historic Trinity Wall Street, and he has performed on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Other major appearances include performances at the Ravinia, Aspen, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Salzburg, and Vienna festivals, the South American premiere of LA Opera’s production of Il Postino in Chile, and performances with the Baltimore Symphony and the Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino in Turin, Italy. He has worked closely with numerous conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and his mentor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. 
 
His discography includes the 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as Grammy–nominated recordings of Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical); six commercial CDs with the Master Chorale, including Glass-Salonen (RCM), You Are (Variations) (Nonesuch), Daniel Variations (Nonesuch), A Good Understanding (Decca), Miserere (Decca), and the national anthems (Cantaloupe Music); and two live-performance albums, the Master Chorale’s 50th Season Celebration recording and Festival of Carols. He has also led the Master Chorale in performances for several major motion pictures soundtracks, including, at the request of John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Gershon was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Thornton School of Music in 2002 and received the USC Alumni Merit Award in 2017.  

Aszure Barton recently relocated to Los Angeles from New York City, where she was based for almost two decades. She received her formal dance training from Canada’s National Ballet School, where she helped originate the Stephen Godfrey Choreographic Showcase as a student.

She has now been creating dances for over 25 years and has collaborated with celebrated dance artists and companies including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Teatro alla Scala, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, English National Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Nederlands Dans Theater, National Ballet of Canada, Martha Graham Dance Company, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Sydney Dance Company, Houston Ballet, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, among many others. Her works have been performed on countless international stages including the Palais Garnier (Paris), Mariinsky Theater (Moscow), The Kennedy Center (DC), The Alicia Alonso Grand Theater (Cuba), and Lincoln Center (NY).

She is the founder of Aszure Barton & Artists, an inter-disciplinary international dance project. Other choreography credits include the Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera directed by Scott Elliott, translated by Wallace Shawn, and starring Cyndi Lauper, Alan Cumming, Jim Dale, Nellie Mackay, and Ana Gasteyer; film and installation projects, and international outreach activities such as Kenya’s Earth Project: Healing the Rift at the Laikipia Nature Conservancy. Her choreography has been featured in numerous television projects, including the Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts series with Alice Waters and Mikhail Baryshnikov. She has received accolades and honors including the prestigious Arts & Letters Award, joining the ranks of Oscar Peterson, Eugene Levy, Karen Kain, Paul Shaffer, Alex Trebek, Christopher Plummer, and Margaret Atwood. She was the first Martha Duffy resident artist at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and is an official ambassador of contemporary dance in Canada. As an educator, Barton is regularly invited to collaborate with and give workshops at universities and art institutions around the globe.

For more information, visit AszureBarton.com.