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Lawrence Edelson has earned an international reputation as an innovative Director, able to fuse vivid story telling with deeply expressive imagery, and has been praised by Opera Now magazine as doing a “splendid job of making (opera) relevant and understandable.” Lawrence received his Bachelor’s Degree in Stage Direction from New York University. He has served as a Staff Director for Glimmerglass Opera, where he taught for the Young American Artists Program, and was the Assistant Director on multiple productions. He has been a guest member on the directing staff of New York City Opera, where he restaged Little Women twice: for the work’s Lincoln Center premiere, and for the company’s tour to Japan. Lawrence’s original productions include La Voix Humaine at New York’s Maison Française; the world premieres of Salome’s Flea Circus and Travels with Gulliver for the New York New Music Ensemble at Symphony Space; I Live in Sin, a theater piece based on the sonnets of Michelangelo; the American Premiere of Telemann’s Orpheus for Wolf Trap Opera; Carmen for Toledo Opera; Il barbiere di Siviglia for Hawaii Opera Theater; the New York premiere of Fauré’s rarely produced Pénélope for Manhattan School of Music; Così fan tutte for Boston University’s Opera Institute; and the World Premiere of The ToyMaker off-Broadway as part of the New York Musical Theater Festival.
Lawrence is a member of the faculty of the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, where he has directed original productions of Adamo’s Little Women and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the 2008-2009 season, Lawrence was one of the first winners of OPERA America’s Director/Designer Showcase, sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts. Upcoming directing engagements include La traviata with Minnesota Opera, and new productions of Werther for IVAI in Tel Aviv and Philip Glass’s Hydrogen Jukebox for Fort Worth Opera.
Before focusing on Directing, Lawrence enjoyed a diverse performing career in both Ballet and Opera. He originally studied voice and musicology at The University of Ottawa in Canada, and dance at The Joffrey Ballet School in New York. As a dancer, he performed diverse repertoire with Boston Ballet, Ballet West, and BalletMet Columbus, including world premieres by Merce Cunningham, Donald Byrd and André Prokovsky. Lawrence founded the New Choreographer’s Workshop in 1991 at The Joffrey Ballet School, which continues to flourish today.
He has choreographed for ballet and opera companies internationally including: Bedtime Stories for BalletMet Columbus; Bright Blue for Boston Ballet’s DRF Gala; Symphonic Etudes for the Joffrey Concert Dancers; Patience for New York City Opera; Carmen for Opera Columbus; Orpheus in the Underworld for Des Moines Metro Opera; and productions of Chérubin and Le Coq d’Or in Tel Aviv.
As a singer, Mr. Edelson appeared in opera, oratorio and musical-theater. His roles included The Magician in The Consul, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette, Der Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos, Mercury in Orpheus in the Underworld, Lucano in L'incoronazione di Poppea, Ricardo in Chérubin, Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, the Tenor Soloist in Bach’s Magnificat and Charpentier’s Te Deum, Baby John in West Side Story, Jeffrey in Godspell, and Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Lawrence also completed his Master’s Degree in Performing Arts Administration at New York University, authoring the thesis, Opera: The Irrelevant Art: Uniting Marketing and Organizational Strategy to Combat the Depopularization of Opera in the United States. He has consulted on projects for MCC Theater, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York City Opera, and on the cultural development of Lower Manhattan for New York City councilmember Alan Gerson. In 2005, Lawrence founded American Lyric Theater (ALT) in New York City, and serves as its Producing Artistic Director. In this capacity, Mr. Edelson coordinates the diverse artistic programs of ALT, including the commissioning of new works, and the only full time program for emerging opera composers and librettists in the United States. Currently for ALT, Lawrence is overseeing the development of The Golden Ticket, a new opera based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which will premiere at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Wexford Festival in 2010; as well as a trilogy of one-act operas inspired by the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, and a full-length opera based on Ibsen’s The Master Builder. |
