Sam Helfrich   |  Director, Così fan Tutte

Sam Helfrich (director) has directed theater and opera at companies including Boston Lyric Opera, Portland Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Boston, Berkshire Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Wolf Trap Opera and Boston Baroque Orchestra, among others. Recent productions include The Turn of the Screw at Boston Lyric Opera, Philip Glass' Orphée at Portland Opera, Eugene Onegin at Pittsburgh Opera, The Consul for Glimmerglass Opera, Louise at Spoleto Festival/USA, Der Freischutz at Opera Boston, Anthony Davis' Amistad at Spoleto Festival/USA, Aida and Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Opera Omaha; Semele and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny with Opera Boston; Le Comte Ory at the Juilliard Opera Center; Philip Glass’ Orphée as part of the 2007 all-Orpheus season at Glimmerglass; Don Giovanni and Agrippina with Boston Baroque Orchestra; Il barbiere di Siviglia for Kentucky Opera, and L’elisir d’amore and Il matrimonio segreto, both at Berkshire Opera. In 2002 he formed his own theater company, Captains of Industry, to produce Stephen Belber’s Transparency of Val, widely acclaimed during its New York run. Upcoming projects include Handel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, to be performed at Versailles with The English Concert, and collaborations on two new opera commissions. Mr. Helfrich holds a BA in Russian language and literature from Columbia University, and an MFA in theater from Columbia’s School of the Arts.

Brent Buell   |  Director, A Month in the Country

Brent Buell (director) is bringing his extensive theatre and film experience to the world of opera.  His direction has been described as both startling and visionary.  Some of Buell’s directorial work includes From Sing Sing to Broadway, which premiered at Playwright’s Horizon on 42nd Street; his comedy The Gem Exchange; Rosemary Hester’s You Can’t Leave That There; Wood Bars, which he wrote with Miguel Valentin for the opening of John Buffalo Mailer’s Back House Productions; and his Las Vegas spectacular, Undone Divas.  Buell was recently honored by admission into the Theater Resources Unlimited Producer’s Mentorship program.  He has formed his own production company, Doing Life Productions, and is currently directing Iyaba Ibo Mandingo’s Self Portrait –slated for this year’s fall season in Manhattan, and Tommie Moore’s Pardon Me, For What?  Goddess Films tapped him to direct “Moses,” a short comedy starring Rosie DeSanctis premiering later this summer.  For the last ten years, Buell has also volunteered with Rehabilitation Through the Arts, directing theater in New York’s maximum-security prisons.  There his productions of plays like John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men have earned praise from critics, including from The New York Times.  His Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, premiered at Sing Sing and was the subject of a feature article in Esquire by bestselling author, John Richardson.  An accomplished actor, Buell has appeared in classic roles from Shakespeare and Ibsen to Moliere and Strindberg, and on the big screen in both the hit comedy Grand Opening and the soon to be released controversial thriller Al Qarem.  He has written two novels, Daniel and My Revelation and Rapturous.  Mr. Buell did his undergraduate education in California, and received his M.A. from Ohio University.

Lee Hoiby   |  Composer

Lee Hoiby, born 1926 in Wisconsin, is one of the most notable living composers of classical vocal music. Hoiby's first opera, The Scarf, a chamber opera in one act, was recognized by TIME and the Italian press as the hit of the first Spoleto Festival in 1957. His next opera was Natalia Petrovna (New York City Opera, 1964), now known in its revised version asA Month in the Country, based on a play by Ivan Turgenev. Hoiby's setting of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke (with libretto by Lanford Wilson), perhaps his best known opera, was declared "the finest American opera to date" by Harriet Johnson of The New York Post. It was premiered in 1971 by St Paul Opera, Minnesota, and performed at the New York City Opera the following season under conductor Julius Rudel. Among Hoiby's other operatic works are the one-act opera buffa Something New for the Zoo (1979); the musical monologue The Italian Lesson (1981, text by Ruth Draper) which was produced off-Broadway and nationally toured in 1989 with Jean Stapleton along with the Julia Child curtain-raiser Bon Appetit!; a three-act setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1986), and a one-act chamber opera, This Is the Rill Speaking (1992), text by Lanford Wilson. Hoiby's most recent opera is a setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which awaits its world premiere.
Hoiby is also recognized as a notable song composer. From 1964 until her retirement in 1996, soprano Leontyne Price introduced many of his best known poem settings and arias to the public, including “The Serpent” of Roethke, “Be Not Afeard” (from The Tempest), the Dickinson songs, the “Evening” of Wallace Stevens, “Lady of the Harbor” and “Where the Music Comes From.” Of note among his larger compositions for the voice are his 1991 setting of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream for baritone and orchestra, which has had memorable performances by baritone William Stone and bass-baritone Simon Estes, and the orchestral song "The Tides of Sleep" on a text of Thomas Wolfe.
Though many of his works involve vocalists, Hoiby has also written some instrumental works, most recently Summer Suite for Wind Ensemble. He has also made significant contributions to the piano repertory (in addition to his demanding song accompaniments), including two piano concertos and a volume of solo piano works published by G. Schirmer.  He has written chamber music in numerous combinations, including sonatas for violin, ‘cello, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra (Pastoral Dances), and the piano quartet Dark Rosaleen (Rhapsody on a theme by James Joyce). Most recently he has written a work called Also for the Verdehr Trio of violin, clarinet and piano.
Hoiby has written several large-scale choral works, including the Christmas cantata A Hymn of the Nativity (text by Richard Crashaw), the oratorio Galileo Galilei (libretto by Barrie Stavis), and an accrual of works for voice, chorus and orchestra on texts of Walt Whitman which have been gathered into a full evening’s program called A Whitman Service. His numerous choral anthems are heard regularly in churches throughout the US and Britain.
In 2006 Hoiby wrote “Last Letter Home” to the words of an American soldier who died in Iraq. This moving work can be seen and heard in several versions on YouTube. The version performed by baritone Andrew Garland went viral with over half a million views.