BIO

Please select a version below:
Staufenbiel: Tenor (longer version) (shorter version)
Staufenbiel: Director (longer version) (shorter version)

Brian Staufenbiel, stage director, is the head of the Opera Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His directing credits include Bizet’s Carmen; Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love; Menotti’s The Medium and The Consul; Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi; Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute; Weill’s Street Scene; and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for which he was awarded the first prize in the National Opera Association Opera competition in New York in 2007. Staufenbiel has also guest directed at the Seoul Contemporary Opera Company and at the Sherbrooke Summer Music Festival. In February 2007, he directed the world premiere performance of the final version of Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar with San Francisco’s Ensemble Parallèle and is directing the world premiere of The Dawn Makers by Allen Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens with California’s by Composers, Inc this coming February. He is also presently working on the west-coast premiere of John Rea’s reorchestration of Berg’s Wozzeck, to be performed with Ensemble Parallèle at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco in February, 2010.

Staufenbiel also teaches both undergraduate and graduate students in the voice department at UCSC and an active tenor soloist. He can be heard on numerous CD recordings. The Staufenbiel/Scharrón Duo has performed from coast to coast, Argento’s Letters from Composers set as a one-man opera. The duo recently completed a CD recording of works by Britten, Argento, and Adler (commissioned work). Staufenbiel holds a doctorate degree in vocal performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music. He is on the board of the National Opera Association.