Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

Sarah Meyers is a New York based stage director, author and scholar who enjoys questioning how, where and what opera should be. Meyers' diverse 2021 Season included a new staging of Die Walküre for New Orleans Opera featuring a cinematic installation by filmmaker Samantha Aldana as well as a new production of Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied which opened Berkshire Opera Festival to enthusiastic acclaim. In 2018, Meyers directed the premiere presentation of Gregg Kallor’s Dramatic Sketches from Frankenstein as part of the exciting new performance series, The Angel’s Share, at Green-Wood Cemetery. The production received rave reviews and was declared one of WQXR’s standout performances of 2018. Operawire described the performance as “riveting … an extraordinary experience” and Limelight extolled Meyers’s direction as “perfectly finessed…. Powerful and meticulous.” Meyers’ collaboration with Kallor built upon their previous success with his monodrama, The Tell-Tale Heart. This highly praised production was originally created for The Crypt Sessions in collaboration with On Site Opera in 2016. The NY Observer’s James Jorden declared the “starkly simple production” to be “one of the most effective stagings I’ve seen.”

Additional highlights of Meyers' career include a new production of Rigoletto in Seoul which marked her international directing debut in 2019, and a unique production of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde in 2013 called “enchanting” by The New York Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini. The opera was produced by the Music School of Lighthouse International in conjunction with Arts at the Park, and featured a cast which combined visually impaired and sighted performers. Other recent directorial credits include Dido and Aeneas for the Juilliard School of Music, Carmen and The Magic Flute for the Crested Butte Music Festival, and revivals of Julie Taymor’s Magic Flute and Michael Mayer's La Traviata for the Metropolitan Opera. Meyers' is passionate about the development and performance of contemporary opera and music drama, as demonstrated by her work with Kallor and Cipullo. Meyers' 2014 production of the new opera Gallo by Ken Ueno was hailed as “one of Guerilla Opera’s best” and highly praised by the Boston Globe for its inventiveness and “striking tableaux.” Meyers also served as the associate director to Julie Taymor for Elliot Goldenthal's Grendel at LA Opera and the Lincoln Center Festival. Meyers assisted Francesca Zambello on the premier of Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, and directed the production in several revivals, including San Francisco Opera, Lithuania National Opera, and New York City Opera. Meyers regularly directs the genre-defying show, That's Not Tango, by Lesley Karsten and Stephen Wadsworth, which interweaves a narrative of the life of Astor Piazzolla with his music. 

Meyers is an enthusiastic educator and has directed and taught for companies including Juilliard, Aspen Opera Theater Center, and Wolf Trap Opera. Meyers has a Bachelors of Art from Harvard University in Music and Philosophy, and a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University, where she wrote her dissertation about the experience of the uncanny in contemporary performance. Meyers is also the author of a new translation and adaptation of Die Fledermaus, which debuted with Boston University's Tanglewood Institute in 2016, in a production she also directed. The adaptation was performed by MassOpera in April, 2019. ArtsFuse declared the translation to be “a major feat… blow[s] the dust off a creaky antique.” Meyers has been a member of the directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera since 2006. Upcoming projects include Tosca for the Chautauqua Opera Company.