Peter Kazaras  Professor--Director of Opera Studio  Telephone:  (310) 206-2994 E-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Office: B145

Since 2006, PETER KAZARAS has been the Artistic Director of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program. He has enjoyed a career as an operatic tenor since 1979, and in the past decade has worked with great success as a stage director and teacher. Career highlights include world premieres of several new works, including Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles (Metropolitan Opera), Bernstein’s A Quiet Place (Houston Grand Opera, La Scala Milan, Kennedy Center, Vienna State Opera,) Tippett’s New Year(Houston Grand Opera,) Picker’s Thérèse Raquin (Dallas Opera); a legendary Carnegie Hall performance of Jenufa with Gabriela Benackova and Leonie Rysanek, conducted by Eve Queler leading the Opera Orchestra of New York (available on iTunes); leading roles in landmark productions at the Seattle Opera including Loge in Das Rheingold in both the François Rochaix and Stephen Wadsworth Ring cycles, Pierre in War and Peace and Captain Vere in Billy Budd (both productions directed by Francesca Zambello.

 

Recent projects have included Norma for Seattle Opera, Le nozze di Figaro, The Turn of the Screw, Falstaff , and black-box touring productions of The Tragedy of Carmen and La Serva Padrona for the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program, Trouble in Tahiti for the Caramoor Festival. SuorAngelica and Gianni Schicchi for UCLA Opera and for Hartt College of Music, Iolanta for the Academy of Vocal Arts, The Medium and Angélique for San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Der Vampyr for Florida State University, Little Women at the Cabrillo Festival, Die Fledermaus for Madison Opera, Acis and Galatea with the Santa Fe Pro Musica, He recently directed a well-received new production of Musto’s Volpone in The Barns at Wolf Trap. Next summer brings him to the San Francisco Opera Center for a new production of Albert Herring with the Merola program.

A native New Yorker, Peter Kazaras is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law