Ben Robinson (Toby/Director)

Ben Robinson is the General Director of Anchorage Opera, the Artistic Director of Opera Ithaca (New York) and Raylynmor Opera (New Hampshire), as well as the Managing Director of Lyric Fest (Philadelphia). He works as a director, librettist, educator, and arts administrator. As a stage and film director, he has mounted numerous productions, highlighted by new productions for which he also wrote new English libretti: Madame Butterfly, Macbeth, Hansel and Gretel, The Barber of Seville, The Impresario, Die Fledermaus and Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon. Ben's film production of Bastien and Bastienne, with his original English libretto setting the action in the social media-obsessed present, was released in March 2021 and subsequently streamed at the Arlington International Film Festival. He directed and edited a film release of Pagliacci for Raylynmor Opera in October 2020 and directed Gianni Schicchi for Opera Ithaca, which Opera Magazine heralded as the "deftest use... of Covid-era technology as part of modern operatic reality." He was announced as a 2021 recipient of the Ewing Arts Award, which celebrates the diversity and excellence of artists in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.

 

In February 2023, his 2022 "moving, visually daring" (Opera News) Julia Child-inspired Hansel and Gretel film joined the Opera Philadelphia Channel and was subsequently streamed at a series of outdoor events for the company in September 2023.

 

Directing highlights include Nabucco for the inaugural Opera Ithaca Festival, The Impresario and The Pirates of Penzance for Ithaca College, a soap-opera inspired conceptual production of Così fan tutte for Cedar Rapids Opera, Hänsel und Gretel for Temple University, Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Ithaca and Raylynmor Opera, a cruise ship setting of L'Italiana in Algeri for St. Petersburg Opera (nominated for 10 Theatre Tampa Bay Awards, including Best Director), a suburban American Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Ithaca/Raylynmor Opera), a reimagined double-blind production of The Medium (Amarillo Opera, streamed on Panhandle PBS), a fashion-world inspired La Cenerentola (Raylynmor Opera), a new chamber production of Suor Angelica (West Texas A&M University), and the world premiere of Sally Lamb McCune's We Wear the Sea Like a Coat (Opera Ithaca/Ithaca College).

 

Projects for the 2023-2024 season include directing Scalia/Ginsburg and Rusalka for Opera Ithaca, The Elixir of Love for Anchorage Opera and Annapolis Opera, L'enfant et les sortilèges for Salt Marsh Opera, Ariodante for Temple University, and Les mamelles de Tirésias for the inaugural Alaska Artist Development Program.

 

Upcoming projects include Così fan tutte with Opera Ithaca, Madama Butterfly and L’Italiana in Algeri with Anchorage Opera, Scalia/Ginsburg with Gulfshore Opera, Cendrillon (Massenet) with Cedar Rapids Opera, and A Little Night Music with St. Petersburg Opera.