Stage Director Sara E. Widzer continues to produce exceptional operatic and theatre works at companies across the United States and abroad. In the 2021-22 season she returns to Los Angeles Opera directing the live streams of the company’s productions of Tannhäuser and Il Trovatore, followed by her return to Opera Santa Barbara for a new production of Semele. In March she makes her debut in the Maldives for a new production of La Tragedié de Carmen, followed by serving as Assistant Director to Francesca Zambello at LA Opera for Aida. She returns to the Music Academy of the West for the summer as the program’s first full-time acting and performance coach.

Her guest engagements for the 2020-21 season included three directorial debuts: for Opera Santa Barbara’s Concert in the Car a new production of La Tragedié de Carmen, for Opera Orlando a new production of Bizet’s Carmen set during the Duvalier regime of 1960’s Haiti, and for Charleston Opera theatre a new production of La Tragedié de Carmen – a Radio Opera. She also served as Intimacy Coordinator/Director for Ryan McKinny’s new film, After Glow, based on Schumann’s Dichterliebe staring John Holiday.

As Director: The Death of Orpheus for LA Opera, JUANA for Opera UCLA, Chautauqua Opera Scenes Program; Carmen for Rochester Philharmonic; Woman of Salt for The Wildish Theatre; After Life and Letters from Quebec to Providence in the Rain for UCSB Opera and the National Opera Association and UC Santa Barbara Opera Theatre; Susannah for Pasadena Opera; The Flying Dutchman for the Hawaii Opera Theatre and Virginia Opera; The Music Man for the Royal Opera House of Oman; Le jongleur de Notre-Dame and L’elisir d’amore for Florida State Opera; Don Giovanni, Tosca, Pagliacci, and Hansel and Gretel for Opera in the Ozarks; Faust and Giulio Cesare for Celestial Opera Company; Reasons to be Pretty, Bury the Dead, Zoo Story, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, As You Like It, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Lee Strasberg Creative Center.