Tomer Zvulun, Stage Director

Establishing himself as one of opera’s most exciting young directors, Tomer Zvulun has consistently received praise for his theatrical and creative vision. In recent seasons, his work has been produced in opera houses across the United States, including NYC, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas and Cincinnati. A former member of the directing staffs of Seattle Opera and New York City Opera, he has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera directing staff since 2007.

His recent directing engagements include a remount of his highly successful production of Die Zauberflöte for his debut at the Cincinnati Opera. The Cincinnati Inquirer called it “a charming, puppet-filled production” directed by “the finest director of the season.” The production was originally created for Indiana University and was also seen at the Atlanta Opera in 2010, where it received rave reviews. 

Earlier in 2011, Zvulun directed a double bill of L'heure espagnole and Gianni Schicchi at Juilliard Opera Center, which was praised by The New York Times for its “witty, fast-paced staging” and the director’s style, which “filtered the action…through a Felliniesque lens.”  This fall, Zvulun returned to the Atlanta Opera to direct his third new production of Lucia di Lammermoor following his successful presentations of the piece in Opera Cleveland and Seattle Opera.  All three productions of Lucia received wide critical acclaim: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently selected the Atlanta Lucia as one of Atlanta’s Best for 2011, the Seattle production was declared by The Seattle Times “a poetic, unalloyed triumph” and The Plain Dealer proclaimed his work in Cleveland a “smart, compelling and stylish production.”

At the Metropolitan Opera, Zvulun has worked on new productions of La rondine, Tosca, La traviata, La fille du régiment, Carmen and Iphigenie en Tauride, among others. He returns to the Met in 2012 to direct Tosca with Patricia Racette and Roberto Alagna and to work on a new production of Manon.

Zvulun has directed Der fliegende Holländer for the Atlanta Opera, Die Fledermaus for his Dallas Opera debut, La bohème for Opera Cleveland, Hänsel and Gretel for Nashville Opera, Le nozze di Figaro and Hänsel and Gretel for Chattanooga Opera and L’elisir d’amore for Sugar Creek Festival. In 2009, he returned to Seattle Opera as an associate director to Stephen Wadsworth for Wagner’s complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Highlights of Zvulun’s educational engagements include three new productions at Indiana University: Die Zauberflöte, Faust and Cosí fan tutte, a double bill of L’heure Espagnole/Gianni Schicchi at the Juilliard School, Three Decembers at Boston University and a new production of Gianni Schicchi for the International Vocal Arts Institute (IVAI) in Tel Aviv.  Zvulun also gave a series of master classes for the vocal masters students at Juilliard and taught classes at the IVAI program in Virginia and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Zvulun’s upcoming projects include a new La bohème for Seattle Opera, his debut at Wolf Trap Opera Festival with a new Don Giovanni, his Arizona Opera debut with Lucia di Lammermoor, and a return to IVAI in Tel Aviv.  He will also return to Atlanta Opera for a TBA new production in 2013 and to Seattle Opera in 2015.