Francesca Zambello (born August 24, 1956) is an American opera and theatre director. She serves as the artistic director of Washington National Opera.
Francesca Zambello (born August 24, 1956) is an American opera and theatre director. She serves as the artistic director of Washington National Opera.
Born in New York City, Zambello lived in Europe when she was a child, learning to speak French, Italian, German and Russian. Zambello is of Italian descent, the daughter of actress Jean (née Sincere) and Charles C. Zambello, a former actor [1] [2] who became head of flight entertainment at TWA. [3] She attended Moscow University in 1976 and graduated from Colgate University in 1978.
An internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Francesca Zambello's American debut took place at the Houston Grand Opera with a production of Fidelio in 1984. She began her career as an assistant director to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. From 1984 until 1991 she was the artistic director of the Skylight Music Theater with Stephen Wadsworth. She debuted in Europe at Teatro La Fenice in Venice with Beatrice di Tenda in 1987 and has since staged new productions at major theaters, festivals and opera houses around the world. Also, she served as artistic advisor to the San Francisco Opera from 2006 until 2011. Between 2011 and 2022, she served as artistic and general director of the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, [4] and she is currently the artistic director of Washington National Opera, a post that she has held since 2012. [5]
Zambello has been awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for her contribution to French culture and the Russian Federation's Medal for Service to Culture. She received the San Francisco Opera's Medallion of Honor for her work there over three decades. Other honors for her work include three Olivier Awards from the London Society of Theaters and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical and Best Opera. She has also received the award for Best Company Achievement. The French Grand prix de la musique du syndicat de la critique was awarded to her twice for her work at the Paris Opera. Other awards include Best Production in Japan, the Palme d'Or in Germany, the Golden Mask in Russia and the Helpmann Award in Australia.
Zambello developed and directed the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis' Heart of a Soldier for the San Francisco Opera, where she served as artistic advisor from 2006 to 2011. Other opera projects have included the first international production of Carmen to ever be presented at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Tobias Picker's Emmeline [6] for Santa Fe Opera, Thérèse for Dallas Opera, and Picker's An American Tragedy for the Metropolitan Opera. [7] Additionally, she mounted productions of Cyrano and Les Troyens for the Metropolitan Opera, Carmen and Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House, Boris Godunov , War and Peace , Billy Budd and William Tell at the Paris Opera, and Der Ring des Nibelungen for the San Francisco Opera and the Washington National Opera.
Theater projects have included Show Boat in London at the Royal Albert Hall as well as for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera; a new musical, Rebecca, for Vienna's Raimund Theater, Stuttgart's Palladium Theater (presented by Stage Entertainment), and in St. Gallen, Switzerland; Tibet Through the Red Box, a new play by David Henry Hwang for the Seattle Children's Theatre; The Little Prince with Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman; Napoleon in the West End; The Little Mermaid for Disney on Broadway; the musical of The Little House on the Prairie and The Master Butchers at the Guthrie Theater, and Aladdin in Disneyland. For the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival, Zambello, Terrence McNally, and Deborah Voigt collaborated to produce the stage show Voigt Lessons which was revived in 2015 at the Art House in Provincetown, Massachusetts. [8]
Other works have included a film of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors for BBC Television, as well as a new film for the BBC, Sony and PBS of The Little Prince , and West Side Story for the floating stage at the Bregenzer Festspiele. Works on DVD include War and Peace, Carmen, The Little Prince, Street Scene , Show Boat and Porgy and Bess .
Zambello has served as a guest professor at Yale University.
Zambello lives in New York City with her wife, attorney Faith E. Gay, and her step-son, Jackson. [9]
The San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California.
The Glimmerglass Festival is an American opera company. Founded in 1975 by Peter Macris, the Glimmerglass Festival presents an annual season of operas at the Alice Busch Opera Theater on Otsego Lake eight miles (13 km) north of Cooperstown, New York, United States. The summer-only season usually consists of four productions performed in rotating repertory. Glimmerglass is well known for producing new, lesser-known, and rare works, many of which in years past have been co-produced with the New York City Opera. It is the second-largest summer opera festival in the United States, currently led by artistic and general director Robert Ainsley, who succeeded Francesca Zambello in 2022.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Jeanine Tesori, known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson, is an American composer and musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and six Tony Award nominations. She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change, the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home, making them the first female writing team to win that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kimberly Akimbo. She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for Fun Home and Soft Power.
The Little Prince, subtitled A Magical Opera, is an opera in two acts by Rachel Portman to an English libretto by Nicholas Wright, based on the 1943 book of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first performed in at the Houston Grand Opera on 31 May 2003.
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Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director, playwright, author, and educator. She was the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco from 1992 to June 2018.
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