CREATIVE TEAM
James Conlon
Conductor
From: New York City, New York.
LA Opera: La Traviata (2006, debut); 67 different operas and over 445 performances to date. He has been Richard Seaver Music Director since 2006. Next season, he will conduct Don Giovanni, Highway 1, USA, The Dwarf, La Traviata and Turandot.
About: He has led virtually every major North American and European orchestra and over 270 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. He is now Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and has been Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the RAI in Torino (2016-20), Music Director of the Ravinia Festival (2005-15), Principal Conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995-2004), General Music Director of the City of Cologne (1989-2002), Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983-91) and Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1979-2016). He has won three Grammys and he was awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur.
JamesConlon.com
John Cox
Original Production
From: Bristol, England.
LA Opera: Die Frau ohne Schatten (1993, debut; 2004); Vanessa (2004); Otello (2008).
About: John Cox is recognized as one of the world’s major opera directors. For many years, he was director of productions for the Glyndebourne Festival, where he directed works by Mozart, Rossini and Haydn, a celebrated production of The Rake’s Progress with David Hockney’s designs, and a notable group of Richard Strauss domestic comedies: Ariadne auf Naxos, Capriccio, Intermezzo, Die schweigsame Frau, Der Rosenkavalier and Arabella. He subsequently was artistic director of Scottish Opera and production director for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His opera productions have been seen throughout Europe, North America and Australia, and he has also worked extensively in theater, television, film and major festivals. Recent productions include a revival of The Rake’s Progress for the Glyndebourne Festival and Così fan tutte for Garsington Opera.
Joel Ivany
Director
From: Toronto, Canada.
LA Opera: mainstage debut. Previously: Nabucco (2017, assistant director); Placido Domingo 50th Anniversary Gala (2017, stage director).
About: He is the founder and artistic director of Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre. He is also the artistic director of both Opera at Banff Centre and Edmonton Opera. His directing credits include productions of Macbeth (Minnesota Opera), Carmen (Vancouver Opera), The Tales of Hoffmann (Edmonton Opera), Gavin Bryars’ Marilyn Forever (Adelaide Festival, Australia) and The Marriage of Figaro (revival at Norwegian National Opera). He is the author of seven (and counting) original librettos for companies such as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company. He is co-director of the film Messiah/Complex, which the New York Times called "A Messiah for the multitudes, freed from history’s bonds.”
@Joel.Ivany
Johan Engels
Scenery and Costumes
From: Scottburgh, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.
LA Opera: L’Elisir d’Amore (1996, debut; 2009); Otello (2008); Thaïs (2014).
About: Johan Engels (1952-2014)was renowned internationally for his work in opera, theater and ballet. His designs for The Passenger have been integral to the success of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera—first in its world stage premiere at the 2010 Bregenz Festival and subsequently in London, Warsaw, Houston (American premiere), New York, Chicago, Detroit and Miami. A few selected highlights of his operatic career also include productions for London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Arne’s Artaxerxes), the Salzburg Festival (Turandot), Welsh National Opera (Khovanshchina, Lulu, Don Carlos), Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra National de Paris. His final projects include a new Ring cycle for Lyric Opera of Chicago; the first three Ring operas premiered there posthumously between 2016 and 2018.
Jason Hand
Lighting
From: Toronto, Canada.
LA Opera: debut.
About: Selected opera credits include productions for the Canadian Opera Company, Minnesota Opera, Against the Grain, Banff Centre, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, and Tapestry Opera. Theatrical designs include collaborations with Young People’s Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Grand Theatre, Canadian Stage, the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival and the Soulpepper Theatre Company. He has designed immersive experiences such as the Disney Animated Immersive Experience (Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas, Toronto and eight more cities across North America, opening this summer in Los Angeles), the Original Immersive Van Gogh (Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, and 13 more cities across the U.S.), and Jamie Allan's Magic Immersive (Chicago).
Instagram: @JH_Lighting
Website: JasonHandLighting.com
Jeremy Frank
Chorus Director
From: Glendive, Montana.
LA Opera: He became Chorus Director last year, after working on over 75 productions as associate chorus director and/or assistant conductor. He previously prepared the chorus for the Plácido Domingo 50th Anniversary Concert (2017) and The Clemency of Titus (2019). He is a coach for the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program.
About: He has collaborated with major opera houses throughout the United States and has prepared operas and vocal chamber music at the LA Philharmonic. As a pianist, he has partnered with Sondra Radvanovsky, Eric Owens, Brandon Jovanovich, J’nai Bridges, Dolora Zajick, Kate Lindsey and Susan Graham. 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
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz
Artistic Director
Los Angeles Children's Chorus
From: Vigo, Spain.
LA Opera: Hansel and Gretel (2018, debut); La Bohème (2019); St. Matthew Passion (2021); Tosca (2022). Upcoming: Turandot (2024).
About: An internationally regarded choral conductor, he became artistic director of the LACC in 2018. He has prepared choirs for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra. From2004 to 2017, he was artistic director of the American Boychoir, leading the ensemble in up to five national and international tours annually. He was the music director on the film Boychoir, directed by François Girard. Learn more about him and the LACC at LAChildrensChorus.org.
Katherine Syer
Dramaturg
From: Toronto, Canada.
LA Opera: debut.
About: With research specializations in historical and contemporary opera/theater production, she worked for nearly two decades at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her collaboration with Moisés Kaufman on the play 33 Variations included script development and the final workshop leading to the 2007 world premiere (Arena Stage) and 2009 Broadway run. She helped launch Sasha Velour’s solo show Smoke and Mirrors and the Spurlock Museum’s companion exhibit In Her Closet: How to Make a Drag Queen. She was dramaturg for Joel Ivany’s production of Hansel and Gretel for Canadian Opera Company.
Andrew Kenneth Moss
Fight & Intimacy Director
From: Corning, New York.
LA Opera: Il Trovatore (2021, debut); Aida (2022); Lucia di Lammermoor (2022); Tosca (2022).
About: He has worked on productions including Armida at the Metropolitan Opera, SAFE at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, A Little Night Music at the Huntington Theatre Company, Cold Mountain at Music Academy of the West, and Carmen, Don Giovanni, I Puritani and Greek at Boston Lyric Opera. New York credits include Forever Dusty for New World Stages, Pinocchio’s Ashes for Theater for a New City and The Saint of Bleecker Street at Dicapo Opera Theatre. He staged combat for Dead Man Walking, West Side Story, The Seven Deadly Sins and Oklahoma! as resident fight director at Central City Opera.
