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ALISONPOGORELCDIRECTOR
about alison
Alison Pogorelc is an American director working across opera and theater, with a focus on clear storytelling and contemporary approaches to classical work.
During the 2025–26 season, Alison makes her Madison Opera debut directing La Bohème and directs a semi-staged concert presentation of Honegger’s Le Roi David with the New York Choral Society. This spring, she returns to Washington, D.C., where she previously made her Washington National Opera debut directing Handel’s Partenope with the Cafritz Young Artists, and once again collaborates with the program on Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief.
In summer 2026, Alison makes her Santa Fe Opera debut, assisting on Christopher Luscombe’s production of The Magic Flute and directing the Apprentice Scenes. She is currently in her fourth season on the stage directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera, where during the 2025–26 season she is working on La sonnambula, I puritani, Tristan und Isolde, and La traviata.
Photos by Isaiah Joseph
Alison has created new productions for companies such as Des Moines Metro Opera—Salome (2024), collaborating with Maestro David Neely and starring soprano Sara Gartland—as well as Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue for West Edge Opera, which was named one of the Best Performances of 2022 by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Mercury News. She has also directed projects for Wolf Trap Opera, Mannes Opera, and the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music.
A recipient of the 2022/23 JoElyn Wakefield-Wright Stage Director Fellowship from the National Opera Association and OPERA America’s Robert L. B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize, Alison was recognized for her bold, Nietzschean vision of Salome.
Alison is also passionate about reviving early repertoire. In ongoing collaboration with Early Music Now (Milwaukee), she creates music-driven short films inspired by Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque works. Their latest film premiered in December 2022 and is available on Early Music Now’s website.
In her theater work, Alison is committed to making complex texts and stories accessible to a wider audience. Her adaptations and direction of works by Harold Pinter and Seamus Heaney reflect this approach, as does The Way Through Sorrow, a digital production created for the first fully virtual Rochester Fringe Festival.
Associate and assisting directing credits include productions at the Metropolitan Opera (Le nozze di Figaro, Moby-Dick, Rigoletto, La rondine, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Idomeneo, Champion), as well as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, Central City Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Florentine Opera, Berlin Opera Academy, and the Prototype Opera Festival.
In rehearsal at the Glimmerglass Festival,
Photo by Karli Cadel
Alison holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater with a concentration in directing and a minor in Literary Studies from The New School of Drama in New York City. She also earned an Artist Diploma in Operatic Stage Direction from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied under Robin Guarino and Greg Eldridge.
Behind the Scenes of Sleep Hath its Own World
Photo by Philipa Joy Kerr
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