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Most recently, Mr Alden created a new production of Don Pasquale to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Opera Theatre of St Louis, whose inaugural production was also Don Pasquale, directed by Mr Alden fifty years ago. He then brought his staging of Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione, originally created for Gotham Chamber Opera, to OrpheusPDX. Later this season, he revives his Olivier Award-winning production of Handel’s Partenope at English National Opera, before travelling to Toronto to revive his production of Rigoletto for the Canadian Opera Company. He began his professional career with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival, appearing in the Tony Award winning rock musical, Two Gentlemen of Verona. After apprenticing as assistant director to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in Houston, Paris and Salzburg, he first attracted international attention with his own productions through his ground-breaking work with the Long Beach Opera. Starting with an acclaimed Death in Venice there in 1982, he followed with La Boheme, La Traviata, The Barber of Seville, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, Don Carlo, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Offenbach’s Bluebeard and La Vie Parisienne, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and L’Incoronazione di Poppea, The Rape of Lucretia, The Threepenny Opera and Hopper’s Wife by Stewart Wallace. Throughout the 1980’s, Mr. Alden was the Associate Director of Opera at The Academy, a non-traditional training center for opera singers, where he directed innovative productions of Dido and Aeneas and La Vie Parisienne. Mr. Alden has maintained close relationships with a number of American opera companies. His productions for San Francisco Opera include Les Contes d'Hoffmann, L'incoronazione di Poppea, I Vespri Siciliani, Partenope, The Mother of Us All, Harvey Milk, and the American premieres of Reimann's Ghost Sonata and Henze's Das Verratene Meer. He made his New York City Opera debut in 1979 with Rossini's Le Comte Ory, followed by Harvey Milk, L’Italiana in Algeri, Sousa's The Glassblowers, The Rape of Lucretia, The Mother of Us All, Don Giovanni, La Perichole and Bernstein’s A Quiet Place. For the Dallas Opera he directed Le Nozze di Figaro, Wozzeck and two different productions of Der Fliegende Holländer, while his work with Houston Grand Opera includes stagings of La Traviata, Madama Butterfly and the world premiere of Wallace and Korie's Harvey Milk. For The Washington Opera he directed L'incoronazione di Poppea and I Capuleti ed i Montecchi starring Tatiana Troyanos. In Chicago he directed Der Fliegende Holländer and Rigoletto for Chicago Lyric Opera, La Clemenza di Tito for Chicago Opera Theater and co-directed, with his twin brother David Alden, Le Nozze di Figaro, Così Fan tutte, and Don Giovanni with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim. Later, he created new productions of the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. He debuted at Santa Fe opera in 1978 with Le Comte Ory and later returned for The Beggar’s Opera and Les Contes d’Hoffmann. His first production at Glimmerglass Opera was L’Italiana in Algeri, followed by The Rape of Lucretia, Offenbach’s Bluebeard, The Mother of Us All, Handel’s Imeneo, Sweeney Todd and Sousa’s The Glass Blowers. For Pittsburgh Opera, Mr. Alden produced Hansel and Gretel, Der fliegende Holländer and Le Nozze di Figaro. He also worked closely with Opera Omaha, staging new productions of La Traviata, Aïda, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Don Pasquale and The Barber of Seville. For the Canadian Opera Company, his productions include Der Fliegende Holländer, Rigoletto, La Clemenza di Tito, Die Fledermaus and the world premiere of Barbara Monk Feldman’s Pyramus and Thisbe. Portland Opera has presented his productions of Der Fliegende Holländer, Turandot and Don Giovanni. In addition, he has staged Luisa Miller and Gluck’s L’Ile de Merlin for Spoleto Festival USA and Leonard Bernstein’s Peter Pan for Bard SummerScape. Other US companies with which Mr Alden has collaborated include Los Angeles Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Connecticut Grand Opera, L’Opera Francais de New York, Gotham Chamber Opera, Eos Orchestra and companies in Fort Worth, Detroit, Syracuse, Indianapolis and Memphis. Mr. Alden has enjoyed relationships with a number of companies in the UK. For English National Opera, he has produced Turandot, Die Fledermaus, The Makropulos Case (which was later presented at the Prague National Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (a co-production with the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, where it won the Golden Mask Award), and Partenope, which has subsequently been presented by the Teatro Real, San Francisco Opera and Opera Australia, where it won the Helpmann Award. For Opera North, Mr. Alden’s success with a new Tosca was followed by Monteverdi’s Orfeo, The Greek Passion, Gianni Schicchi, La Vida Breve, Pagliacci, Rossini’s L’Occasione fa il Ladro, Bizet’s Djamileh and Norma (later presented in Bordeaux, London and Chemnitz). For Scottish Opera, he directed Turandot and the world premiere of A Friend of the People by David Horne. The Welsh National Opera presented his productions of Turandot and Faust, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. In the Summer of ’25, he debuted at Garsington Opera with Verdi’s Un Giorno di Regno. In Germany, Mr. Alden’s productions include Aida at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci in Köln, The Makropulos Case and Asrael by Alberto Franchetti in Bonn, Peter Grimes and Tristan und Isolde in Karlsruhe, The Rake’s Progress in Braunschweig, Salome and Phaeton by Lully in Saarbrucken, La Traviata in Wiesbaden, Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Die Lustige Witwe in Wuppertal. Elsewhere, Mr. Alden’s productions include Don Giovanni and Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail in Basel, Idomeneo in Geneva, Il Trovatore with the Vlaamse Oper, Chabrier’s L’Etoile, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci and La Fanciulla del West with Opera Zuid, a triple bill of Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle, Don Procopio and Djamileh at the Opéra Comique in Paris, Norma in Bordeaux, Djamileh in Lyon and Il Turco in Italia at the Aix Festival, later presented in Dijon, Torino and Warsaw. He has also staged Madama Butterfly in Bilbao and a double bill of Il Prigioniero and La Vida Breve at the Greek National Opera. With the Israeli Opera, Mr. Alden directed Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, La Traviata and Madama Butterfly, and he won his second Golden Mask Award for his production of Tri Sestri by Peter Ötvös for the Yekaterinburg State Opera, which presented this opera’s Russian premiere. |
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