Guest Artists
Dorothy Danner
Stage Director
In the two decades since leaving her career as a dancer and actress Dorothy Danner has directed and choreographed more than 150 productions of operas, operettas, musicals, and plays. While equally at home in dramatic works, she is particularly noted for her inventive staging of comic works. Before turning to directing, Dorothy (Frank) Danner performed in many Broadway shows from the original "Once Upon a Mattress" to Michael Bennett's "Ballroom."
Dorothy Danner, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, has directed with such companies as Opera Pacific, The Atlanta Opera, Orlando Opera, Opera Omaha, Chautauqua Opera, Central City Opera, The Minnesota Opera, The Manitoba Opera in Winnipeg, The Syracuse Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, The Glimmerglass Opera, Dayton Opera, Indianapolis Opera, The Mobile Opera, and Hawaii Opera Theatre. Her repertoire of staged productions includes Tosca, Postcard From Morocco, Albert Herring, The Mikado, La Cenerentola, La grand Duchesse de Gerolstein, Wargo's Chekhov Trilogy, Candide, Rosemarie, La traviata, Iolanthe, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tender Land, and She Loves Me.
Recent activities include Man of La Mancha at New Jersey's famed Papermill Playhouse, scenes programs and fully staged productions at Portland State University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon Institute, The Academy of Vocal Arts, and with the Young Artists Program of Pittsburgh Opera and Florida Grand Opera. Her staging of "An Evening with Gilbert & Sullivan" for The Boston Pops was televised nationally over PBS and she staged another Gilbert and Sullivan evening for The Omaha Symphony. She has also served on the faculty of The Juilliard School and The Curtis Institute.
Engagements in recent seasons included Manon and The Pirates of Penzance with Piedmont Opera, Die Zauberflöte with Opera Pacific, Il barbiere di Siviglia for The Cleveland Opera, The Merry Widow with Opera Grand Rapids, La fille du regiment with The Kentucky Opera, Man of La Mancha with Opera Omaha, and South Pacific with Utah Festival Opera. Other commitments included Tosca with Virginia Opera, Falstaff with The Academy of Vocal Arts, La perichole with The Opera Company of Philadelphia, Porgy and Bess with New Orleans Opera, La Cenerentola with The Cleveland Opera, Iolanthe with Skylight Opera Theatre, and Desert Song with Utah Festival Opera.
During the 2002-03 season Dorothy Danner directed Musgrave's A Christmas Carol as well as Die Fledermaus with Virginia Opera, H.M.S. Pinafore with Opera Omaha, Die Fledermaus at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and Fiddler on the Roof at Utah Festival Opera. Future engagements include Carmen with The Cleveland Opera, The Pirates of Penzance with Fort Worth Opera, and Il barbiere di Siviglia with Portland Opera.
This past season, Ms. Danner has directed productions of Carmen, Susannah, Tartuffe, The Pirates of Penzance, and the premiere of Thea Musgrave's "Voices of Power and Protest" at the United Nations. At AVA, she has directed Elektra, Falstaff, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Madama Butterfly, the Richard Wargo opera The Chekhov Trilogy, Barber's Vanessa and Massenet's Manon.
Tito Capobianco
Stage Director
Tito Capobianco, Stage Director, is highly acclaimed for his ingenious and versatile treatment of repertory classics. His innovative, modernized settings of operas consistently dazzle audiences since he began exploring a modernistic version of Puccini’s Tosca in 1957.
In addition to his unparallel and distinctive success with his twenty-four opera productions at the Lincoln Center in New York City, Mr. Capobianco has staged over 250 productions in the major opera houses of Europe, Australia, and the American continent, such as Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Barcelona, San Fransisco, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Sidney, Spoleto, and the Las Palmas Festival, Spain.
Mr. Capobianco has strongly influenced the development of opera in the United States. His staging of American and world premieres such as Ginastera’s Don Rodrigo and Bomarzo, Menotti’s La Loca, Giannini’s Servant of Two Masters, Dvorak’s Rusalka, and Chabrier’s Gwendoline have been hailed as landmarks in opera history. He had the distinct honor of participating in the inauguration of the Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where his productions of Boito’s Mephistopheles, Massenet’s Manon, Handel’s Julius Caesar, and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor continued to form part of their repertoire after more than twenty years.
During the 1960’s, his collaboration with soprano Beverly Sills became legendary. This led to the first televised opera productions from the Lincoln Center in New York City with the production of R. Korsakob’s Le coq D’Or, as well as the west coast production of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow in San Diego in 1977. In the late 1970’s, he established the world’s first Verdi Festival in San Diego, California.
Today, Mr. Capobianco concentrates exclusively on teaching young artists in the United States and Europe.
