STAGE DIRECTOR BETH GREENBERG
"A sure theatrical hand" — Opera News
With a curious imagination about new possibilities for 21st-century opera and its productions, stage director Beth Greenberg focuses on new American work and the challenge of redefining where and how opera can be performed.
Greenberg has earned a solid reputation for her collaborations with American opera composers. She has been involved in all phases of new work, from libretto development and workshop readings to fully-staged premieres. Adding to her list of new American opera productions will be the professional World Premiere of Lori Laitman's The Scarlet Letter for Opera Colorado in May, 2013. She recently directed the West coast premiere of Rorem's Our Town which was praised as "a splendid production" by the San Francisco Chronicle. She also staged early workshops of Before Night Falls by Jorge Martin and directed the stage premiere of excerpts from Gordon Beeferman's The Rat Land, which was twice-featured on City Opera's VOX series. Never shying away from unusual topics, Greenberg directed the world premiere of Pumped Fiction, the comic opera by MacArthur genius John Eaton. She has also collaborated with many other American composers including Elliot Goldenthal, John Musto and Mark Adamo. Greenberg also recently taught Master Classes in New American Arias at SongFest in Malibu.
Along with her dedication to the creation and performance of new work, Beth Greenberg explores and tests the conventions of how and where opera can be performed. She directed the site-specific Il Tabarro aboard a retired oil tanker moored in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The production garnered international attention with The New York Times providing extensive coverage. A return to this waterfront space and the tanker Mary A. Whalen is being planned for the New York premiere of Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas.
Beth Greenberg is a veteran director of classic opera and has been associated with the New York City Opera for over twenty years. For City Opera at Lincoln Center she has directed original mainstage productions of Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Turandot. Her production of Hoffmann was singled out by critic Terry Teachout as one "directed with spectacular flair." She has also helmed many City Opera revivals including Der Rosenkavalier, La Traviata, Intermezzo, La Boheme, and Tosca. Her original productions have also been seen worldwide, represented by her staging of Carmen in Toyko, and Tosca in Lima, Peru. In America she has staged Aida for the Utah Festival Opera, Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Pasquale for the Pittsburgh Opera Center, and Eugene Onegin for Opera Delaware.
Reaching out to young people about opera is also important to Greenberg. For City Opera Education she has staged X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and The Magic Flute.
Beth Greenberg won a Fulbright to Berlin where she trained with Gotz Friedrich at the Deutsche Oper. She is currently the Resident Stage Director for Opera Noire of New York and Opera for Humanity. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance (M.M. in Music Theory), and Brooklyn College (B.A. in Music).