Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

Cori Ellison, a leading creative figure in the opera world, has served as staff Dramaturg at Santa Fe Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, and New York City Opera. Active in developing contemporary opera, Ellison is a founding faculty member of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program and has developed new operatic works for companies including Glyndebourne, Icelandic Opera, Canadian Opera, Norwegian Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Chicago Opera Theater, Arizona Opera, Opera Birmingham, Pittsburgh Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, the Miller Theater, Indiana University, and Crane School of Music. Ellison has served as production dramaturg for projects including L'incoronazione di Poppea at Cincinnati Opera; Orphic Moments at the Salzburg Landestheater, National Sawdust, and Master Voices; Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo at National Sawdust and Philharmonia Baroque; Washington National Opera’s Ring cycle, Opera Boston’s The Nose, and Offenbach!!! at Bard Summerscape.

At The Juilliard School, where she serves on the Vocal Arts faculty, Ellison leads Opera Lab, a practical training program for composers, librettists, and performers. Ellison is also a faculty member at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Program for Singers and has coached and taught master classes for singers at schools including Indiana University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Mannes College, University of Toronto, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Michigan State University, DePaul University, University of Illinois, Loyola University, Montclair State University, University of Utah, and Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance program. Ellison regularly serves as a judge for The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Concurso San Miguel in Mexico, and many other vocal competitions. Ellison creates supertitles for opera companies worldwide, and helped launch Met Titles, The Met’s simultaneous translation system. Ellison’s English singing translations include Hansel and Gretel (NYCO), La vestale (English National Opera) and Shostakovich’s Cherry Tree Towers (Bard Summerscape). Ellison has often written for The New York Times and has contributed to books including The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and The Compleat Mozart.