BIO
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Staufenbiel: Tenor
Staufenbiel: Opera
Opera
Brian Staufenbiel has served as Director-in-Residence at Ensemble Parallèle since 2007, where he has helmed the direction and design of the Ensemble’s critically acclaimed productions. Utilizing cutting-edge design and adventurous stagecraft, Staufenbiel’s visionary productions have left an indelible impression on the San Francisco Bay Area opera scene.
His work with Ensemble Parallèle began in February 2007, when he directed the world premiere of the final version of Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar. In January of 2010, Staufenbiel directed the West Coast premiere of John Rea’s reorchestration of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Heralded by the San Francisco Classical Voice as “mesmerizing,” and “devastating,” Staufenbiel’s striking direction created “images and scenes that continue to haunt the memory.”
Recently, Staufenbiel’s 2011 production of Philip Glass’ Orphée wove cirque acrobatics, kinetic staging, and floating film projections into a cohesive, surrealist tapestry. Commended as “triumphant” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Ensemble Parallèle’s Orphée “fused story, music and stagecraft into an engrossing evening of music theater. Also in 2011, Staufenbiel latest production of Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts in collaboration with EP and SFMOMA, received acclaim by the Financial Times saying that, "the imagination can take you anywhere--prevailed."
As a guest director, Staufenbiel has worked on productions both around the Bay Area and internationally. In 2010, Staufenbiel’s direction of Madame Butterfly for Festival Opera in Walnut Creek garnered critical attention for its deft use of shadow puppet theater and intimate staging. In 2009, he collaborated with new-music proponents Composers Inc. to direct the world premiere of Allen Shearer’s The Dawn Makers. Staufenbiel has also directed at the Seoul Contemporary Opera Company, for the Korean premiere of David Jones’ Bardos and the reprise of Chan-Hae Lee’s Back to the Origins.
Staufenbiel is the Director of the opera program at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where his productions have won first prize in the National Opera Association’s Opera Competition.
Staufenbiel is currently designing and stage directing Ensemble Parallèle’s upcoming production of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, to premiere in February 2012 in San Francisco.