A native of New York City, Michael Scarola joins Opera Lucca for the first time this summer. He has been on the directing staffs of the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera and New York City Opera. He has had the privilege of working with such prestigious artists as Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara, Cecilia Bartoli, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Bryn Terfel, James Morris and many others.
Career highlights include directing Bernstein’s Mass for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination. Recent productions include Puccini’s La Rondine at Dallas Opera, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor and Der Fliegende Holländer forMadison Opera, Don Giovanni and Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Arizona Opera, The Mikado at Michigan Opera Theatre, La Bohéme at Opera Pacific, Macbeth at Dayton Opera, and A Richard Rodgers Celebration and An Evening of Cole Porter for the Boston Pops.
In May of 2006 Mr. Scarola had the honor of working with Emmy Award-winning Partisan Pictures in its filming of a feature documentary on the incredible story of Raphael Schächter and his performances of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem in the concentration camp of Terezín, near Prague in the Czech Republic. Besides his role as Music Consultant to the project, he was instrumental in the success of capturing this tribute performance of author and conductor Murry Sidlin’s Defiant Requiem – a feature of the 2006 Prague Spring International Music Festival – as the on-set camera director overseeing the movements of five cameras. The Emmy Nominated film was recently shown as part of the prestigious DocuWeeks Film Festival in New York City and Los Angeles. It has aired on PBS and was also recently released on DVD. It is now also being streamed on Amazon Prime.
Mr. Scarola has worked extensively with numerous Young Artist and university programs around the country including the Tanglewood Festival Fellows, Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Opera Institute of Boston University, Florida Grand Opera Young Artists Program, Cincinnati Opera Young Artists Program, DePauw University Opera, International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel, La Musica Lyrica, as well as many others. He was visiting Guest Director of Opera for six years at the University of Utah.
He has directed for numerous companies throughout the United States including Dallas Opera, Opera Pacific, Arizona Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Utah Opera.
Mr. Scarola is currently Visiting Director of Practice and Interim Director of the Meadows Lyric Theatre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and Adjunct Faculty at New York University/Steinhardt School of Music.