Tannhauser Live Broadcast

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.

Patrick Blackwell continues to expand his impressive repertoire in opera, oratorio and musical theater. His career has seen him engaged by many of the leading opera companies and orchestras of the U.S. and Europe, including appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, Munich Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago and LA Opera. He trained at the Juilliard School and began his career as a young artist with the Santa Fe Opera, Houston Opera Studio, the Merola Opera Program with San Francisco Opera, Opera Music Theatre International with Jerome Hines and Aspen Opera.

In July 2023, he appears with the Opera Festival of Chicago in An Italian Soirée and as Leone in Verdi's Attila. His appearances for the 2023/24 season include a return to LA Opera as Baron Douphol in La Traviata and a debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Don Fernando in Fidelio.

He has appeared in concert with the Munich Philharmonic in Porgy and Bess conducted by Lorin Maazel and in the title role of Porgy on a European tour with NY Harlem Productions. His association with this piece is extensive, having appeared as Porgy and other roles with Utah Opera, the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Fresno Grand Opera, the Castleton Festival, conducted by Lorin Maazel, and on tour throughout the United States.

On the concert platform, Mr. Blackwell is highly sought after as the bass soloist in Verdi’s Requiem. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in the world premiere of Earnestine Rodgers Robinson’s Crucifixion in addition to performing works by Mozart at the Arts Festival in North Korea, the Fauré Requiem with the Fresno Philharmonic and Osride in Mose in Egitto by Rossini with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center.

In the United States, Mr. Blackwell’s operatic engagements have included Leporello in Don Giovanni, Colline in La Boheme, Zuniga in Carmen for New York City Opera, First Nazarene in Salome and Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro for Utah Opera, Sarastro in The Magic Flute for Fresno Grand Opera, Ferrando in Il Trovatore for Knoxville Opera, the King in Aïda and Melitone in La Forza del Destino for New Jersey State Opera and Tom in Un Ballo in Maschera for New Orleans Opera.

With Chicago Lyric Opera Mr. Blackwell’s roles have included Burnah in Amistad, Henry Davis in Street Scene, Cal in Regina and the Duke of Verona in Roméo et Juliette. 

Recent engagements include Zuniga in Carmen with San Diego Opera and Méphistophélès in Faust with Valley Opera & Performing Arts. 

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 67 different operas and more than 450 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, the 2021 company premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, the 2022 company premiere of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and a 2023 production of Verdi's Otello.

(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 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 450 performances of 67 different operas by more than 30 different composers. Highlights of his LA Opera tenure include conducting the company’s first Ring cycle; 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 2022/23 season, Mr. Conlon conducted two operas long absent from the company’s repertory, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Verdi's Otello, along with a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

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.

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.