Madama Butterfly Director, Nathan Troup has been named Boston Lyric Opera’s Emerging Artist-Stage Director for the 2015-16 season. Additional upcoming highlights include La traviata and Le nozze di Figaro for The Boston Conservatory; new-works residency at Brandeis University with experimental opera company Guerilla Opera; touring production of Montsalvatge’s El Gato con Botas in a co-production with The Boston Conservatory and OperaHub; a new production of Elena Langer’s Four Sisters for Boston Opera Collaborative; and continued collaboration with live performance at Museum of Fine Arts – Boston.
Madama Butterfly Conductor, Michael Sakir is equally active on the podium and at the keyboard. In the 2015-16 season, Sakir makes his guest conducting debuts with Eugene Opera in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Opera Orlando in Mozart’s The Impresario and Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias. He also returns to Des Moines Metro Opera as conductor for Philip Glass’ Galileo Galilei.
Conservatory Director, Kirk Jackson is pleased to return to HHOT for his third consecutive season. He recently appeared as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Jersey Lily at Dorset Theatre Festival and also directed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to close out their season. Other directing credits include: Tartuffe (Franklin StageCo.); ‘ART’ and Take Me Out (Cap. Rep.); The Internationalist, R&G are Dead, Take Me Out (Helen Hayes Award), (Studio Theatre, DC); The Busy World is Hushed, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Nickel and Dimed (Actorstheatre, Phoenix); Tartuffe, The Importance of Being Earnest, Uncle Vanya, An Absolute Turkey, and Six Characters in Search of an Author (USD/Old Globe Theater, San Diego). He has assisted director Ivo van Hove on groundbreaking productions at New York Theatre Workshop, most recently, Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage. He has taught and directed at Princeton, NYU, CalArts and Bennington College (faculty since 2001).
Conservatory Coach, Sara Chiesa is delighted to return to HHOT for her second season. She has coached and performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, and Italy. This summer, she will expand her travels to coach/play Orpheus in the Underworld for New Opera Singapore. In the 2015-16 season, she is working as a Pianist/Coach for l’Opéra de Montréal, Opera Saratoga, and Michigan Opera Theatre. Ms. Chiesa spent the 2014-15 season as the Pianist/Coach for the Marion Roose Pullin Opera Studio at Arizona Opera. There, she coached and played rehearsals for Rigoletto, Eugene Onegin, Die Zauberflöte, and La fille du régiment. She spent the summer of 2015 as the pianist/coach for Suor Angelica, The Medium, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chicago Summer Opera. Ms. Chiesa is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and she holds a collaborative piano degree from Florida State University (D.M.A.) and two piano performance degrees from Bowling Green State University (M.M.) and Oakland University (B.M.). She has worked with Virginia Opera, the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Prague International Piano Masterclasses, the CoOPERAtive Program, V.O.I.C.Experience, and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.
