Marc Verzatt Director

Marc Verzatt directs opera, operetta, and musical theater throughout the United States, South America, and Europe. He began his theatrical career as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera after studying drama at Rutgers University and ballet with New Jersey’s Garden State Ballet. After several seasons as a soloist with the MET Ballet, he left to continue his education in production as a stage manager with the Cincinnati Opera and Pittsburgh Opera companies. He made his professional directing debut with a production of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann with Opera Columbus. He has since directed productions with the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires; Chicago Lyric Opera; Houston Grand Opera; Florida Grand Opera; and the opera companies of Fort Worth, Lake George, Madison, Arizona, Toledo, Atlanta, Kansas City, Baltimore, Idaho, and Mississippi. In Austin, he directed both Puccini’s La bohème and Shakespeare’s Much Ado AboutNothing. Verzatt has taught and directed at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts and Notre Dame University. As lecturer in opera at Yale University’s School of Music, he has directed Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Purcell/Britten’s Fairy Queen, Puccini’s Iltrittico, Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias, and Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue, all of which were subsequently produced for Orchestra Sinfonico di Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. For the Boston Youth Symphony, he has staged Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Verdi’s Macbeth. In 2005 he was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera for an acting role in Strauss’s Ariadneauf Naxos. In 2006 he was named Outstanding Stage Director of the Year by ClassicalSinger magazine. He has been a guest lecturer and coach for Bard’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program since its inception, and was appointed to its faculty in fall 2010.