R.B. Schlather
Director
© Zach Gross
American director R.B. Schlather is back at Oper Frankfurt, where he made his European debut in 2019 with Handel's Tamerlano in the Bockenheimer Depot, which was followed by Cimarosa's L’italiana in Londra and Puccini's Madama Butterfly in the main house, for this new production of Verdi's Macbeth. He recently directed and conducted Handel's Rodelinda in Hudson Hall, which was followed last April by a Purcell Dido und Aeneas / Britten Rape of Lucretia double bill at Shepherd School of Music Rice University in Houston. He also directed a zoom performance: Rip the Nut: The Puppet Show for Hudson Opera House and Così fan tutte in Santa Fe. These were preceded by, amongst others, John Adams’ Doctor Atomic at Curtis Opera Theatre in Philadelphia, Don Giovanni in co-operation with Opera Philadelphia, Verdi's Macbeth for Syracuse Opera and an evening in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra's Fluxus Actions series in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He also directed Handel's Alcina, Orlando and Ariodante under the auspices of Opera Omaha ONE Festival in a New York art gallery. His 2018 roduction of Hertzberg's chamber opera The Rose Elf in the catacombs of Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn received the WQXR’s »Freddie«-Award, his reading of Virgil Thompson's The Mother of Us All in Hudson Hall came under the New York Times' »Best Opera Performances of 2017«. The Music Critics Association of North America voted his and the composer David Hertzberg's opera The Wake World for Opera Philadelphia »Best New Opera«. His reading of Philip Glass’ In the Penal Colony as an historical cyclorama for Boston Lyric Opera, from who's Emerging Artist Program he graduated in 2014/15, was voted one of the »Best Opera Performances of 2015« by the New York Times. He was Artist in Residence at the National Sawdust in Brooklyn for the 2016/17 season.