Madama Butterfly

CONDUCTOR
Louis Lohraseb

Since his professional debut at the Teatro del’Opera di Roma in 2019, Louis Lohraseb has quickly established himself as an exciting new conductor on the international stage, with subsequent debuts at the Semperoper Dresden, Los Angeles Opera, and Komische Oper Berlin.

Following his acclaimed mainstage debut with Tosca at Los Angeles Opera, Lohraseb was swiftly re-engaged for Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Traviata. The 2023-24 season featured his notable debuts at Staatsoper Hamburg with Le Nozze di Figaro and Atlanta Opera with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a performance with the Peoria Symphony.

Recent highlights include Carmen at Semperoper Dresden, La Traviata at Komische Oper Berlin, Thérèse with Opera Sarasota, and La Rondine and Don Giovanni at Indiana University Opera Theatre. He has also led gala concerts with Yale Opera and Summer Opera Tel Aviv.

An accomplished pianist, Lohraseb is a regular recital and chamber music partner collaborating with such artists as Erica Petrocelli, Liv Redpath, Charles Castronovo, Taylor Raven, Eric Silberger, Madalyn Parnas, and Cicely Parnas. He studied piano with Findlay Cockrell and Kevin Murphy, and harpsichord and theory with William Carragan.

Lohraseb was a recipient of the prestigious Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award in 2022, and he includes among his mentors Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Arthur Fagen, and Kevin Murphy. An alumnus of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera, he has served as assistant conductor to music director James Conlon for numerous productions since 2017 at the Los Angeles Opera and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born to Iranian and Italian parents, Lohraseb graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Geneseo, where he was an Edgar Fellow. He has been a Conducting Fellow at the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Shinik Hahm and served as assistant conductor to Peter Oundjian, John Adams, and Krzysztof Penderecki, among others, with additional post-graduate coursework at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

DIRECTOR
Marcus Shields

Marcus Shields is a visual artist, musician, and stage director working in classical music and new media. His work, which ranges from audio engineering to filmmaking to large-scale, multimedia performance installations, is all about connecting audiences to classical music. He has created and directed performance pieces for the Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, The Chautauqua Institute, Des Moines Metro Opera, the Arizona Opera, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, College Conservatory of Music at UC (CCM), Wolf Trap Opera, The Merola Opera, and the Madison Theatre. In addition to directing, Shields has co-founded multiple companies including OSSIA productions, AlexanderJane creative, UpUntilNow collective, and Catapult Opera. For Catapult Opera, he served as Executive Director from 2018 – 2021, during which time he created the Accelerate Competition and commissioned “The Glitch”, an opera by Nico Muhly and Greg Pierce. As of 2024, he has embarked on a long-term social media project exploring directing, opera, and methods of creative production. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of an opera by David Hertzberg with the Rochester Philharmonic and a new production of Nozze di Figaro with the Curtis Institute of Music.