LOUISA MULLER

Heralded by Opera News for her “absorbing, provocative staging,” Louisa Muller revives her acclaimed productions of La traviata in her debut with Dallas Opera and The Turn of the Screw for her return to Santa Fe Opera. She also directs a new production of Dialogues des Carmélites for The Juilliard School and directs the National Opera Studio residency at Opera North. Her European debut of a new production of Der kleine Prinz for the MusikTheater an der Wien has been postponed two seasons in the wake of theatre renovations. Her other future engagements include debuts of new productions with the Metropolitan Opera and Opera North as well as revivals of her productions in a debut with Canadian Opera Company and in a return to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Last season, she returned to Garsington Opera to direct Platée and made debuts with Santa Fe Opera with La traviata for the company’s opening night and Pinchgut Opera with Rinaldo, all new productions.

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Louisa was a finalist for the 2024 International Opera Awards in the Director category.  Her recent production of The Turn of the Screw for Garsington Opera received the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award and was named by The Guardian as one of the Top Ten Classical Music Performances of the Year. She received rich critical acclaim for her staging of Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, which the New York Times called “riveting…a remarkable evening of music theater” and named among its list of the Best Classical Music Performances of the Year. She has created new productions of Amadigi di Gaula for Boston Baroque and Philharmonia Baroque and The Rake’s Progress for The Juilliard School. In addition, she directed concert stagings of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival and Don Giovanni at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp. She was a 2020 finalist in the “Newcomer” category of the International Opera Awards.
 

She has been a frequent and beloved presence at Wolf Trap Opera, where she has directed new productions of Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, called “a dazzling thing all around” by the Washington Post; The Rape of Lucretia, with the Washington Post again heralding her work as “an intense wallop of a well-sung production;” Tosca, praised as “searing summer verismo” by Washington Classical Review; and Roméo et Juliette, “the drama taut” and with “compelling stage pictures,” reported the Washington Post.

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She has led performances of Tannhäuser and Don Carlo with Los Angeles Opera and La traviata for Minnesota Opera and has returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct Madama Butterfly, La bohème, and Tosca. She has also directed revivals of Madama Butterfly for Opera Queensland, Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Houston Grand Opera. As a member of the Metropolitan Opera's directing staff, she has helmed revivals of Don Giovanni, Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, and L'elisir d'amore. Her productions of Porgy and Bess for the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and The Grapes of Wrath at the Aspen Music Festival were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Invested in the dramatic training for singers, she has twice directed the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Rising Stars concert featuring its Ryan Opera Center and has collaborated with those singers in individual dramatic coaching. She has given masterclasses and dramatic coaching at the National Opera Studio in London, Houston Grand Opera Studio and Young Artists Vocal Academy, Wolf Trap Opera, Baylor University, University of Wisconsin, Lawrence University, and the University of Texas and has been a faculty member of the Scuola di Belcanto in Urbania, Italy. She has directed scenes programs for Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera Studio, Wolf Trap Opera Studio, and Rice University. 

 

She holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a citizen of the United States and Germany and makes her home in London.