DIRECTOR
University of California, Santa Cruz Opera Program Director
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, DonGiovanni, 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 directed at the Seoul Contemporary Opera Company the Korean premiere of David Jones’ opera Bardos and the reprise of Chan-Hae Lee’s latest opera Back to the Origins.
He has also been guest director in the Sherbrooke Summer Music Festival, where he directed works by Ravel and Honegger. He returned to the festival in Summer 2007 to direct and perform in the semi-staged version of Handel’s Jephtha.
In February 2007, Staufenbiel 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 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. As a tenor, he has sung the leading roles in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri; Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia; Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias; Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges; Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny; and Mechem’s Tartuffe.
Staufenbiel has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Rochester Bach Festival in New York State, and sings frequently throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to live performances, Staufenbiel has recorded for Musical Heritage Society; Koch International Classics; and Helicon Records, music by Alessandro Stradella, Heinrich Schütz, Lou Harrison, and Paul Bowles.
His most recent recording includes the world premiere recordings of tenor arias from Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar and The Mass for the Feast of Saint Cecilia (Kleos records).
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.
Other Related WebSites and Videos:
Young Caesar Opera Video
Wozzeck Project
UCSC OPERA PROGRAM