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NEW YORK

Pleiades House
7 W 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
USA
+1 212-994-3500

 

LONDON

Capital Tower
91 Waterloo Road
London SE1 8RT
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 20 7957 5800

 

PARIS

31 Rue du Temple
75004 Paris
France
+33 (0)664022957

 

HANNOVER

Rathenaustraße 12
30159 Hannover
Germany
+49 511 20300873

 

JAMES ROBINSON

OPERA DIRECTOR

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR – OPERA THEATER OF ST. LOUIS

ABOUT

In the 2023-2024 season, James Robinson returns to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct the company’s premiere of Terrence Blanchard’s Champion and to the Metropolitan Opera for a revival of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which opened the company’s 2021-2022 season to sensational acclaim after its world premiere at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2019. This season also brought him to the Ravinia Festival, where he directed The Magic Flute joined by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop. Later this season, he joins Fort Worth Symphony to direct Act 1 of Die Walküre conducte by Robert Spano. Last season he directed the Met premiere of Champion and directed Tobias Picker’s Awakenings at Odyssey Opera in Boston.

First seen at English National Opera and Dutch National Opera, his Grammy award-winning production of Porgy & Bess opened the Metropolitan Opera season in 2019 and returned to the Met last Fall. He directed Written in Stone, a trio of new operas commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Center, at Washington National Opera in February 2022. In March 2022, he made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut with Fire Shut Up In My Bones. He also directed the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings (based on the book by Oliver Sacks) and a new version of Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk (co-directed with choreographer Sean Curran) for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, as well as the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s M Butterfly (based on the play by David Henry Hwang) for Santa Fe Opera as part of their 2022 season.  

James Robinson has been the Artistic Director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis since 2009. During his tenure he has directed numerous world premieres, including Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Ricky Ian Gordon’s 27 and Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown. For Opera Theatre of St. Louis he has also mounted productions of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer and Nixon in China, Dominick Argento’s Miss Havisham’s Fire, Weill’s Street Scene, Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath, and the American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland.

A frequent guest at Santa Fe Opera, he directed Barber’s Vanessa in 2016 and Huang Ruo’s Dr. Sun Yat Sen in 2014, in addition to Così fan tutte, Capriccio, and The Rake’s Progress. For Canadian Opera Company, he has directed acclaimed productions of Elektra, Norma, L’elisir d’amore, and Nixon in China.  He has also directed numerous new productions for Houston Grand Opera, most recently Giulio Cesare and the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s A House Without a Christmas Tree and San Francisco Opera, where his work has included L’elisir d’amore and Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne. His work has also been seen at Opera Australia, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Wexford Festival, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hollywood Bowl, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Carnegie Hall.   

NEWS

CONTACT

MATTHEW A. HORNER

GENERAL MANAGER
+1 212 994 3514
EMAIL

NOAH SESLING

SENIOR ASSISTANT ARTIST MANAGER
+1 212 994 3500
EMAIL