Stage Director

One librettist, one actor, four singers, and ten composers join forces to make opera in a brand-new way. In his first opera libretto, Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop) traces the life of a woman named Sue whose personality is split in two. Sue’s life, from the mundane to the extraordinary, unfolds before us, with each decade scored by a different musical luminary. Opera Philadelphia favorites Missy Mazzoli (Breaking the Waves, The Listeners), Rene Orth (10 Days in a Madhouse), and Nico Muhly (Dark Sisters) return alongside a panoply of company debuts from notable composers, like GRAMMY® nominee Nathalie Joachim. The production stars MacArthur Genius and cabaret icon Justin Vivian Bond, with Zack Winokur directing, and conductor Caren Levine making her Opera Philadelphia debut.

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Complications in Sue

Academy of Music

You could say Vivaldi had a kind of synesthesia when writing The Four Seasons. What does being cold feel and sound like? MacArthur Award-winning playwright and librettist Sarah Ruhl joins Anthony Roth Costanzo to co-conceive a tapestry of Vivaldi’s music, telling an original story about a world in which the seasons are completely out of order. 

The Seasons

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

The New York premiere of Harawi realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply affecting, hour-long song cycle for voice and piano in new physical and dramatic dimensions. It features soprano Julia Bullock and pianist Conor Hanick, with choreography by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber and direction by Zack Winokur. Moving from duet to quartet with dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Zack Winokur, this production breaks open Messiaen’s cycle, connects movement to music, and grapples with the intensity of love and loss.

“Harawi” – Run AMOC

Lincoln Center

Five artists escape the city to a remote farm, seeking a creative retreat and the inspiration of nature. They paint, write, farm, and some even fall in love, but extreme weather upends their plans, altering their lives forever. The Seasons is set in a near future in which the seasons seem to be out of order. Co-conceived by celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, this innovative work creates a new narrative from Vivaldi arias, ensembles, and excerpts from The Four Seasons, all woven together with dance by choreographer Pam Tanowitz. Directed by Zack Winokur with music direction by Stephen Stubbs, the piece uses timeless music to find new ways we can draw connections between our emotions and the weather.

Emerson Paramount Center

HARAWI realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply affecting, hour-long song cycle for voice and piano in new physical and dramatic dimensions, featuring soprano Julia Bullock, pianist Conor Hanick, choreographer/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, with direction by Zack Winokur. Moving from duet to quartet, this production breaks open Messiaen’s cycle, connects movement to music, and grapples with the intensity of love and loss.

Harawi California Tour

 University of California, Santa Barbara

Cal Performances

The Walls Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Join us for an unforgettable evening as Cal Performances presents the West Coast Premiere of Olivier Messiaen's "Harawi" by the American Modern Opera Company. This profound performance is scheduled for September 27, 2024, at 8:00 pm, taking place in the prestigious Zellerbach Hall.

"Harawi" is an hour-long song cycle for voice and piano, brought to life in a newly physicalized and dramatized dimension. This production features the exceptional talents of soprano Julia Bullock, pianist Conor Hanick, and choreographer/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, under the visionary direction of Zack Winokur. Together, they explore the intricate relationship between movement and music, delving into the themes of love and loss that resonate through Messiaen's work.

This event is a highlight of Cal Performances' Illuminations: Fractured History programming for the 2024-25 season, offering a unique blend of music, dance, and drama. Leadership support for Julia Bullock's residency, which makes this performance possible, is generously provided by Michael P. N. A. Hormel.

Tickets for this transformative experience start at $36, with season subscriptions available now and single tickets going on sale on August 6, noon. Don't miss your chance to witness the magic of "Harawi" and be part of a night that promises to be as enlightening as it is entertaining.

Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi

Exalted on “Best of” lists at The New York Times, Washington Post, and Time, Only an Octave Apart sparkles from start to finish. In this “breathtaking cabaret-fantasia” (New York Magazine), Justin Vivan Bond—“the greatest cabaret artist of their generation” (The New Yorker)—pairs with the ever-brilliant, world-class countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for a hilarious, vulnerable, and utterly spectacular opera-meets-cabaret-meets-pop hybrid that “shatters categorical constraints” (Broadway World). Co-created by Zack Winokur, Only an Octave Apart revels in the coexistence of contrasts, celebrating the historical and the hysterical, countertenor to counterculture.

Only an Octave Apart

Dock Street Theatre

AMOC" class="css-u850">AMOC* performs the New York premiere of Anthony Cheung’s the echoing of tenses, a piece that sets to music poems by Asian-American writers reflecting on  memory, cultural and personal identity, family, migration, and loss. The work features AMOC* company members Paul Appleby (tenor), Miranda Cuckson (violin), and Conor Hanick (piano).

Echoing of Tenses

The 92nd Street Y

AMOC*’s production of HARAWI realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply affecting, hour-long song cycle for voice and piano in new physical and dramatic dimensions, featuring soprano Julia Bullock, pianist Conor Hanick, choreographer/dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, with direction by Zack Winokur. Moving from duet to quartet, this production breaks open Messiaen’s cycle, connects movement to music, and grapples with the intensity of love and loss.

Harawi

Harawi is a deeply affecting hour-long song cycle for soprano and piano written by Olivier Messiaen. In addition to Julia Bullock and Conor Hanick’s performance of this sweeping work, this production breaks open Messiaen’s musical explorations of love and death into a newly physicalized and theatrical dimension.

Libbey Bowl

A multi-dimensional performance piece, EASTMAN reflects the performers’ consideration of Julius Eastman’s art and the larger context of his life, creativity, and humanity. The program will include performances of some of Eastman’s most affecting works, including Buddha, Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc, and his epic, joyous Stay on It.

Eastman

Audiences will be captivated by a newly conceived, semi-staged celebration of Kurt Weill’s extraordinary body of work. Directed by Zack Winokur, one of the most innovative and exciting talents working today, the program features two of the world’s most in-demand vocalists—countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who became an international sensation and won a GRAMMY for his portrayal of the pharaoh in Philip Glass’s opera Akhnaten, and GRAMMY Award-winner Cécile McLorin Salvant—alongside an ensemble of SummerFest musicians creating an incomparable evening you will not want to miss.

Synergy: An Evening of Kurt Weill

Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center

Acclaimed as “a perfect musician” (Le Monde) and “vocally brilliant and dramatically fearless” (The New York Times), countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has gone on to appear with many of the world’s leading opera houses. This summer he’ll work with stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur, who is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today, creating masterpieces described as “pure poetry” (Boston Globe). Get to know these great artists ahead of their newly conceived celebration of Kurt Weill on Thursday, August 18.

Artist Lounge: Anthony Roth Contanzo & Zack Winokur

The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center

Australian conductor Simone Young returns to lead the LA Phil in Olivier Messiaen’s epic and gripping symphony. The Washington Post said Young has a “handle on grandeur—how to grow, manage, sustain and tame it,” which is a trait needed for Messiaen’s near 80-minute “more is more” symphony. Inspired by the tragic romance of Tristan and Isolde, Turangalîla-symphonie is an orchestral tour-de-force that is at times carnal, at others mystical, and always leans into transcendent excess. Young weaves together sounds of bird song and imposing pre-colonial Mexican statues, punctuated by massive brass and percussion, the eerie electronic hum of an ondes martenot, and special lighting effects that nod to the composer’s synesthesia—all coming together for Messiaen’s sweeping expression of all-consuming love.

Turangalîla

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Creator and opera revolutionary Davóne Tines brings Langston Hughes’ poem “The Black Clown” to musical life in a vaudevillian rendering of this masterpiece. Fusing gospel, opera, jazz, and spirituals into a searing night of theatrical brilliance, The Black Clown embodies the evolving, divided soul of Black America and animates a Black man’s resilience against a legacy of oppression. The Black Clown has been hailed as “pure poetry” by The Boston Globe, and The New York Times lauds “this rich, seamless production melds the past and present of African-American history into an electrifyingly ambivalent whole.” Tines makes his Opera Philadelphia debut alongside an ensemble of 12 performers in this genre-bending, visually arresting piece, juxtaposing dazzling cathartic performances with Hughes’ enduring work.

Stage Director

Zack Winokur

Events

Upcoming events

10 - 12 Apr, 2026

Turangalîla · Los Angeles Philharmonic

14 - 17 May, 2026

The Black Clown · Opera Philadelphia

Past events

4 - 8 Feb, 2026

Complications in Sue · Opera Philadelphia

19 - 21 Dec, 2025

The Seasons · Opera Philadelphia

About

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