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ALISONPOGORELCDIRECTOR
about alison
Alison Pogorelc is an American director celebrated for her innovative and multidisciplinary approach to storytelling across opera, theater, and film.
In the upcoming 2023-24 season, Alison will be part of the stage directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In the spring, Alison will make her directing debut at the Kennedy Center in DC on a production of Handel's Partenope with Washington National Opera's Cafritz Young Artist Program.
During the previous season, she joined the directing staff at the Metropolitan Opera and made her West Coast debut with a critically acclaimed production of Paul Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-Bleue for West Edge Opera. This production was chosen as the Best of 2022 by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Mercury News.
Photos by Romain Mayambi
She recently received the National Opera Association's JoElyn Wakefield-Wright Stage Director Fellowship and OPERA America's Robert L. B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize for her Nietzschean conceptualization of Strauss' Salome.
In the same season, Alison also directed the Studio Showcase at Wolf Trap Opera, Handel's Agrippina at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and assisted director Alison Moritz on the world stage premiere of The Knock at Cincinnati Opera.
Dedicated to revitalizing early repertoire works, Alison has consistently collaborated with Early Music Now in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She creates short films inspired by music from the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque periods. Their latest collaboration was released in December 2022 and is available for viewing on Early Music Now's website.
During her early career, Alison found rewarding opportunities at organizations like The Glimmerglass Festival and Florentine Opera. She was part of Glimmerglass' Young Artist Program during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, where she assisted on a new adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute and worked with the company's former artistic director, Francesca Zambello, on Verdi's Il trovatore. In December 2020, Alison also joined the Florentine Opera as their Resident Artist Director for the Winter & Spring 2020/21 season, working on the Bronzeville La bohème School Tour and assisting director Jill Anna Ponasik on Weill's Mahagonny-Songspiel.
In rehearsal at the Glimmerglass Festival,
Photo by Karli Cadel
In her theater work, Alison is recognized for her efforts to democratize elevated language and attract new audiences to classical works. She has adapted and directed works by Harold Pinter and Seamus Heaney, and created and directed The Way Through Sorrow for the first fully virtual Rochester Fringe Festival. Alison has also directed readings of playwright Justin McDevitt's works for Poetic Theater Productions and the Fifth Avenue Theatre Festival.
Selected assistant directing credits include: Idomeneo, Champion (Metropolitan Opera); The Knock, Ariadne auf Naxos (Cincinnati Opera); The Rake’s Progress, Le Nozze di Figaro, Vanessa, Così fan tutte, Street Scene (Mannes Opera); Hänsel und Gretel, L’incoronazione di Poppea (Berlin Opera Academy); The Echo Drift (Prototype Opera Festival).
Alison Pogorelc 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, 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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