Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 4 - Jenufa

35 | Lyric Opera of Chicago rocafilm VIDEO DESIGNER Lyric debut Film and video production company rocafilm was founded in 2010 by Carmen Maria Zimmermann and Roland Horvath. Their work focuses on documentaries and video production for opera and theater. Recent opera highlights include a new production of Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno for the Salzburger Festspiele with director Robert Carsen, and a new production with director Damiano Michieletto of La Cenerentola at Semper Oper in Dresden. In 2022, at the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg, with director Rolando Villazón, they created videos for Il barbiere di Siviglia . In 2020 they created a new production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Oper Köln, and later that year collaborated with director Jürgen Flimm on the theater production Don Karlos by Friedrich Schiller at Schauspiel Köln. Frequent collaborators with director Claus Guth, rocafilm’s recent highlights include Bluthaus at the Bayerische Staatsoper ( music by Georg Friedrich Haas), Il Viaggio, Dante at Festival Aix-en-Provence, Don Carlo at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and Semele at Bayerische Staatsoper. MICHAEL BLACK CHORUS DIRECTOR The Australian Chorus Director is in his 11th season at Lyric, having held this position at Opera Australia in Sydney from 2001 to 2013. Black has served in this capacity for such distinguished organizations as the Edinburgh International Festival, Opera Holland Park (London), the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and, in Australia, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Choir, Motet Choir, the Cantillation chamber choir, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Other activities include preparing The Damnation of Faust chorus and Haydn’s Creation at the Grant Park Music Festival, where he has worked for five seasons. He has served as chorus director for close to 140 different operas on four continents, and his work has been recorded and/or aired on ABC, BBC, PBS, for many HD productions in movie theaters, and on television. Michael Black is supported by the Howard A. Stotler Chorus Director Endowed Chair. TERESA ROTEMBERG CHOREOGRAPHER Lyric debut The versatile choreographer and director founded her own company, MAFALDA, in Zurich in 1999. She is a prolific producer of dance pieces, recently developing a particular focus on productions for young audiences. In 2019, she received the Swiss Dance Award in the category of Current Dance Creation for the production Vicky Sets Sail. Engagements as a choreographer for opera have taken her to the Vienna State Opera, the Zurich Opera House, the Opéra national de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House, among numerous others. In 2023, she directed Maria Stuarda by Gaetano Donizetti at the Vorarlberger Landestheater in Bregenz. She previously directed Der Ring des Polykrates by Erich Maria Korngold at the Theater Freiburg (2020), and Greek by Mark-Anthony Turnage at the Konzert Theater Bern (2015). Rotemberg has worked regularly as a stage director since 2005 and has since staged, among others, 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane, Scorched by Wajdi Mouwad, Mefisto forever by Tom Lanoye (based on the novel Mephisto by Klaus Mann), and Brother of Sleep (based on the novel by Robert Schneider). Since the 2021/22 season, Rotemberg has been director of the young audience department at the Lucerne Theater. NOELLE KAYSER BALLET MISTRESS Previously at Lyric: Dancer & Assistant Choreographer/ Carmen (2022/23). The Chicago-based performer, choreographer, and educator has performed with numerous companies including PARA.MAR Dance Theatre, LED Boise, Open Space Dance, NW Dance Project, Visceral Dance Chicago, The Cambrians, Fly on a Wall, gloATL, and Luna Negra Dance Theater. Recent choreographic commissions include Open Space Dance, DanceWorks Chicago, Ballare Carmel, SALT Dance LINK Choreography Festival, Visceral Dance Chicago Trainees, Chicago Dance Crash, Boykin Dance Project, COMMON Conservatory, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theater, Kit Modus, and Moonwater Dance Project. Kayser has taught at PARA.MAR Dance Theatre, NW Dance Project, Visceral Dance Chicago, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, among others, and was the founding rehearsal director for PARA.MAR Dance Theatre. She has performed in theater productions with The Alliance Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 7 Stages, Theater for the Stars, and Scrap Theater Group. SARAH HATTEN WIGMASTER & MAKEUP DESIGNER Lyric’s wigmaster and makeup designer has worked in a wide repertoire at Des Moines Metro Opera, Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre), Columbus Opera, Toledo Opera, the Cabrillo Music Festival, and the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music. She has also worked at the Glimmerglass Festival and the major opera companies of Los Angeles, Omaha, Cleveland, Sarasota, and Central City, as well as Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre and, in Los Angeles, the Pantages Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse. Sarah Hatten is supported by the Marlys A. Beider Wigmaster and Makeup Designer Endowed Chair.