Conductor: Jorge Parodi

Production Director: Jose Maria Condemi

Scenic & Costume Designer: Moníka Essen

Wig Designer: Sue Sittko Schaefer

Associate Wig Designer: Kellen Eason

Lighting Designer: Ben Rawson

Choreographer: Ricardo Aponte

Dancers: Miriam Golomb, Rachel Shiffman, Cansler McGhee

Musical Preparation: Paul Schwartz, Álvaro Corral Matute*

Assistant Director: Ellen Jackson†*

Calling Stage Manager: Marisa Brink

Assistant Stage Managers: Kristin Kelley, Rachel Kilgore

†The Jerry & Dulcy Rosenberg Young Artist Stage Director, given in honor of Tomer Zvulun

*member of The Atlanta Opera Studio
**alumnus of The Atlanta Opera Studio

Robert Xavier Rodríguez (b. 1946)

Robert Xavier Rodríguez (b. 1946) is “one of the major American composers of his generation” (Texas Monthly). His music has been described as “Romantically dramatic” (Washington Post), “richly lyrical” (Musical America) and “glowing with a physical animation and delicate balance of moods that combine seductively with his all-encompassing sense of humor” (Los Angeles Times). “Its originality lies in the telling personality it reveals. His music always speaks, and speaks in the composer’s personal language.” (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters).

Rodríguez is the composer of eight operas which have had over 2,000 performances throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe. Rodríguez’ best-known opera is Frida, based on the life of Frida Kahlo. The New York Times named Frida “The Best Opera/Musical Theater of 1991.” Opera News has listed his children’s opera Monkey See, Monkey Do as the fourth most often-performed contemporary opera in the United States. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix Lili Boulanger and the Prix de Composition Prince Pierre de Monaco. Rodríguez has served as Composer-in-Residence with the San Antonio Symphony and the Dallas Symphony. Twenty CDs featuring his music have been recorded (1999 Grammy nomination), and his music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer. He holds an Endowed Chair at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Migdalia Cruz (b. 1958)

Migdalia Cruz is an award-winning playwright who has written more than sixty plays, operas, screenplays, and musicals.  Her work has been produced across the U.S. and abroad at various venues including: Mabou Mines, Classic Stage Company, Playwrights Horizons, INTAR, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Shakespeare Festival’s Festival Latino, Latino Chicago Theater Company (Chicago); Houston Grand Opera (Houston); among others. She was awarded the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright Award (NYCommTrust), and is a 1996 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays award for Another Part Of The House. At Classic Stage Company, she was a 1994 PEW/TCG National Artist in Residence. Migdalia was a 1997-98 Sackler Fellow at Connecticut Rep/UConn, a 1991 & 1995 NEA Playwriting Fellow, a 1988 McKnight Fellow, and received her MFA degree from Columbia University. She is an alumna of New Dramatists. She was born and raised in the Bronx.

Jorge Parodi

Internationally acclaimed conductor Jorge Parodi has worked extensively in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Recent credits include Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Opera Tampa; Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires for New York City Opera, The Atlanta Opera and Opera Grand Rapids; Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Buenos Aires Lírica (Argentina); Britten’s The Turn of the Screw for the Castleton Festival in Virginia and The Banff Centre (Canada); Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann for Opera Orlando; Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges for The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center and the World Premiere of Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt, the latest opera by John Musto –a coproduction of On Site Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric’s Unlimited and Pittsburg Opera-.  Upcoming engagements include his return to The Atlanta Opera and Opera Tampa, and his debut at Chautauqua Opera.

Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski” by the New York Daily News, Argentinean born Jorge Parodi has also worked with such companies as the Teatro Colón in Argentina, the Volgograd Opera in Russia, the Encuentros Internacionales de Opera in Mexico, the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy in Japan, and the International Vocal Arts Institute in Israel.  He has collaborated with such artists as Isabel Leonard, Eglise Gutierrez, Tito Capobianco, Sherrill Milnes, Aprile Millo and Rufus Wainwright and has assisted conductors Lorin Maazel and Julius Rudel, among others.

Jose Maria Condemi

José Maria Condemi’s directorial work encompasses an eclectic range of styles and repertoire and has been consistently praised for its creatively theatrical and innovative approach. Notable engagements include Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Faust, Tosca, Così fan tutte, Un Ballo in Maschera, The Elixir of Love for Families, and the world premiere of The Secret Garden (San Francisco Opera); Ernani, Tristan und Isolde and Il barbiere di Siviglia for Families (Lyric Opera Chicago); Aida (Houston Grand Opera); Luisa Miller (Canadian Opera Company); Orphee et Eurydice, La bohème, Tosca and Il Trovatore (Seattle Opera); Frida (Michigan Opera Theatre); Tosca, Ainadamar, Don Giovanni, La traviata, Il Trovatore and Maria de Buenos Aires (Cincinnati Opera). Upcoming directing engagements include new productions of Le Portrait de Manon and Suor Angelica (San Francisco Conservatory of Music); Frida (Cincinnati Opera); Carmen (Central City Opera); Tosca (L’Opera de Montreal); and return engagements with Indiana University and Michigan Opera Theatre. Condemi is the Carol Franc Buck Distinguished Chair and the Director of Opera and Musical Theater at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He was also the Artistic Director of Opera Santa Barbara from 2010 until 2015 where he oversaw artistic planning and the Studio Artists Program.