Alumnus Darko Tresnjak '98 will kick off The Metropolitan Opera’s 2018–2019 season with Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila. Led by mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča and tenor Roberto Alagna and under the conduction of Sir Mark Elder, the production will open on September, 24th and will mark Tresnjak's Metropolitan Opera debut with a "a vivid, seductive staging, featuring a monumental setting for the last-act Temple of Dagon, where the hero crushes his Philistine enemies," according to the Metropolitan Opera's website.
Tresnjak received the 2014 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder and a 2015 Obie Award for The Killer. Tresnjak's production of Anastasia is currently on Broadway, running at the Broadhurst Theatre. “An irresistible and sumptuous fairy tale! Director Darko Tresnjak weaves an enchanting spell, Variety reported about Tresnjak's direction on the show. Tresnjak's previous experience in opera includes The Ghosts of Versailles with Patti Lupone and Macbeth with Placido Domingo, both at the Los Angeles Opera.
Tresnjak is the Artistic Director of Hartford Stage, a non-profit in Connecticut. Now in its 54th season, since Tresnjak’s appointment in 2011, Hartford Stage has presented the world premieres of Rear Window with Kevin Bacon; Reverberation by Matthew Lopez; Big Dance Theatre’s Man in a Case with Mikhail Baryshnikov; Breath & Imagination by Daniel Beaty and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Water by the Spoonful, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Hartford Stage is renowned for producing innovative revivals of classics and provocative new plays and musicals – including over 70 world and American premieres – as well as offering a distinguished education program.
During his time as Artistic Director of the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival in San Diego Tresnjak directed Cyrano de Bergerac, Coriolanus, The Women, The Pleasure of His Company, All’s Well That Ends Well, Bell, Book and Candle, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, A Comedy of Errors, Antony and Cleopatra, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles. He received four awards from the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle: for outstanding direction of Cyrano de Bergerac, The Winter’s Tale, and Pericles and for Excellence in Artistic Direction.
