BIOGRAPHY

Christopher Alden

Christopher Alden is regarded as one of America’s most foremost stage directors and has created innovative and exciting productions for opera companies throughout the world.  Mr. Alden opened the 2011-2012 season with Rigoletto for the Canadian Opera Company, followed by a new production of Norma for Opera North in Leeds. He returned to New York City Opera to direct Cosi Fan Tutte and remains in New York to revive Il Sogno di Scipione. He then travels to Moscow to mount his highly-acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stanislavsky Music Theatre and collaborates with Gustavo Dudamel on Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mr. Alden began the 2010-2011 season with Bernstein's A Quiet Place for New York City Opera, followed by Lully's Phaeton at the Staatstheater Saarbruecken. He directed Turandot for Portland Opera and returned to Opera Australia to direct Handel's Partenope, a production which won the prestigious Helpmann award (Best Opera - 2011). Mr. Alden closed the season with rave reviews for Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the English National Opera and Turandot at Welsh National Opera. Mr. Alden has produced for the most distinguished opera houses in the United States including Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Pittsburgh Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the Spoleto Festival.

He has enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the San Francisco Opera, where he has staged numerous productions, including Les Contes D’Hoffmann, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, I Vespri Siciliani, La Cenerentola, Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of us All, as well as the American premieres of Reimann’s Ghost Sonata and Henze’s Das Verratene Meer. Other US highlights include productions of L’Italiana in Algeri, The Glassblowers, and Britten’s Rape of Lucretia for the New York City Opera and Glimmerglass Opera,  and Arianna in Creta for Gotham Chamber Opera..

In collaboration with his twin brother, David Alden, he also staged the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas with the Chicago Symphony conducted by Daniel Barenboim.  He has staged opera for Basel Opera, New Israeli Opera, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera Comique in Paris, and Handel's Imeneo for Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera.