Keturah Stickann’s work as a stage and movement director and a choreographer has been seen in countless opera houses across the United States and Canada, as well as in Chile, Japan, France, Germany, Hungary, and Australia. A champion of new American opera, she works extensively with director and librettist, Leonard Foglia, helping to bring new operas to the stage by Ricky Ian Gordon, Jennifer Higdon, José “Pepé” Martínez, and Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer; she collaborated on Heggie’s premieres of Moby-Dick (2010), It’s A Wonderful Life (2016) and If I Were You (2019). In addition, she directed works by Mr. Gordon (Orpheus and Euridice), Laura Kaminsky and Mark Campbell (As One), Anthony Davis and Allan Havis (Lilith), and Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein (Sister Carrie).
Recent highlights include a celebrated production of Don Giovanni at Minnesota Opera, Suor Angelica at Opera Omaha, a staged Haydn’s Creation at Fort Worth Symphony, The Merry Widow at Indiana University, Dallas Opera’s new production of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Norma at Palm Beach Opera, and Samson et Dalilah at Opera Colorado. Current and future engagements include La bohème at San Diego Opera, The Little Prince for Resonance Works in Pittsburgh, Moby-Dick at the Metropolitan Opera, Carmen at Indiana University, and Stuck Elevator at Knoxville Opera; she concludes the season by directing the Ryan Center end of year scenes program at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Ms. Stickann has directed many new productions and counts among her great successes the “drive-in” versions of La bohème and The Barber of Seville for San Diego Opera, developed with Covid protocol in mind. Her distilled, reimagined version of La bohème went on to enjoy a new production at Virginia Opera in 2021. Other new productions include Candide (Michigan Opera Theatre), La clemenza di Tito and Don Pasquale (Opera in the Heights), Dialogues of the Carmelites (Rutgers University), L’elisir d’amore (Opera Birmingham), L’enfant et les sortileges (Opera Steamboat), Flight (Opera Fayetteville), Macbeth (Kentucky Opera), Norma (Opera Southwest), Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Chautauqua Opera), Pelléas et Mélisande (West Edge Opera), Rusalka (Madison Opera), The Seven Deadly Sins/Pagliacci (Virginia Opera), Tosca (Knoxville Opera), La tragédie de Carmen (Janiec Opera Company), and La traviata (Knoxville Opera, Chautauqua Opera), among others.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Ms. Stickann had an early career as a classical and contemporary dancer, dancing extensively in opera toward the end of her performing career, most notably at San Diego Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, New York City Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater. Her background in dance and theater has made her a sought-after movement coach, working with young artists at the La Jolla Playhouse, the Brevard Music Center, Stephen’s College, DePaul University, Opera Memphis, San Diego Opera, and Virginia Opera
