Francesca Zambello

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Francesca Zambello in 2010

Francesca Zambello (born August 24, 1956) is an American

opera and theatre director. She serves as the artistic director of Washington National Opera
.

Early life and education

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

Moscow University in 1976 and graduated from Colgate University
in 1978.

Career

An internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Francesca Zambello's American debut took place at the

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

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 [de] (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]

References

  1. ^ Joe Novak, Something to Do with Wings: A Memoir iUniverse.com (2010), p. 287. Retrieved October 16, 2011
  2. ^ Ronald Blum, "After the scandal: Francesca Zambello's career takes off following Met fiasco" The Dedham Transcript (July 31, 2004). Retrieved October 16, 2011
  3. UPI
    ) (January 4, 1965). Retrieved October 16, 2011
  4. ^ "The Glimmerglass Festival". 11 October 2022.
  5. ^ "The Kennedy Center".
  6. ^ John von Rhein (30 July 1996). "Tragic Emmeline Never Melodramatic". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  7. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (5 December 2005). "Dreiser's Chilling Tale of Ambition and Its Price". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Deborah Voigt[permanent dead link], Mark Cortale Productions
  9. Kennedy Center

External links