JAY LESENGER                            RETURN TO HOME PAGE
Stage Director

Artistic/General Director - Chautauqua Opera

With a career spanning more than 25 years and 200 productions, Jay Lesenger’s stagings have been seen on stages across the country and recently Europe as well. Jay’s directing skills are reflected in a wide repertory of operas, operettas and musicals that includes WERTHER, MACBETH, LOHENGRIN, IL TRITTICO, THE BARTERED BRIDE, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, DIE FLEDERMAUS, THE CORONATION OF POPPEA and the five Mozart comedies.  He made his New York City Opera debut with a new staging of ANNA BOLENA followed by THE  MAGIC FLUTE and STREET SCENE. Debuts quickly ensued in San Diego, Pittsburgh and Hawaii. Jay is the Artistic/General Director of the Chautauqua Opera and in 2008 became the Director of the Opera Department at Northwestern University.

Most recent engagements include CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN, COSI FAM TUTTE AND STREET SCENE  at Chautauqua, LA FINTA GIARDINIERA at Juilliard and STREET SCENE at Manhattan School of Music.

Recent engagements include Salome and the world premiere of Musgrave’s The Baroness  for New Orleans Opera, as well as  Porgy and Bess and Macbeth for Opera Carolina, Luisa Miller and The Crucible for Opera Boston and La Boheme, Stiffelio, Faust,  Don Giovanni, Butterfly, Crucible and The Music Man at ChautauquaHis recent productions of THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE and DIE WALKURE for New Orleans both garnered “Best Opera Production” awards for their respective seasons.  His critically acclaimed production of ARIADNE AUF NAXOS for the opera companies of Atlanta, Columbus, Virginia, Milwaukee and Chautauqua  was  televised by Wisconsin PBS. In 2000, Jay made his European debut with LA BOHEME for Opera Nordfjord (Eid, Norway) where he returned for THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO.  Other engagements include DER ROSENKAVALIER for Atlanta, Opera Pacific, and Opera Carolina, as well as Krasa’s BRUNDIBAR for Opera Pacific  and Madison Opera.

 

Jay has been Artistic Director for the Chautauqua Opera since 1995. Chautauqua has seen his new productions of THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, COSI FAN TUTTE,  FALSTAFF,  THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, REGINA, SISTER ANGELICA/ GIANNI SCHICCHI, MARY STUART (Maria Stuarda), MADAM BUTTERFLY, SHE LOVES ME, TWO WIDOWS (Smetana,) HANSEL & GRETEL, LA RONDINE,  ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, STREET SCENE and  LA TRAVIATA as well as this season’s TOSCA, MACBETH and MERRY WIDOW.

A dedicated Manhattanite, Jay was graduated from Hofstra University and continued his education in stage direction in the Master's program at Indiana University.  He is a nationally recognized teacher of acting for singers and for five years was an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor, where he directed the School of Music Opera Theatre.  He is a frequent judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and other vocal competitions.

JAY LESENGER
REVIEWS


Stage Director for Macbeth:

"Using a front scrim and swirling projections, director Jay Lesenger created a world of tangible oppression, mortal evil and terrified superstition. His stage pictures alternately glittered like a black diamond (the Witches chorus', authentically pagan-looking) and pierced the heart with their poignant beauty (the breathtaking tableau of suffering that surrounded Macduff's lament in Act III."
OPERA NEWS

“It’s a rare director who is able to overcome the insipid music Verdi wrote for the chorus of Witches, but Jay Lesenger pulled off this feat with wizardly stagecraft that whisked the hags on- and offstage with amazing swiftness.”
OPERA NEWS

Stage Director for Ariadne auf Naxos:

"Jay Lesenger set the opera in the smashing Art Deco salon of wealthy London, circa 1925, and his razor-sharp staging was a model of wit and high spirits."
OPERA NEWS

"Much of the excitement stemmed from Jay Lesenger's brilliantly detailed direction. He choreographed the entire evening with polished, purposeful movement, drawing remarkable definition of character from his singers."
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL

"Jay Lesenger moved the action to London in the 1920's and the Art Deco salon of a British aristocrat."
OPERA NEWS

"In this staging by Jay Lesenger, the characters are clearly delineated. Imagine a room full with stereotypical personalities of both the opera and the theatrical worlds and you have the cast of Ariadne."
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

"Jay Lesenger's artful staging helped focus this dichotomy. The witty Prologue ranged from the antics of the blowzy Zerbinetta and the exaggerated haughtiness of the strutting Prima Donna to the composer's sublime embrace of his art."
THE SENTINEL


"Under Jay Lesenger's direction, the subtlety and delicate irony of all this came through beautifully. The extremes are not overplayed, and the evening-long drift toward resolution of those extremes is as gradual and measured as it is inevitable and satisfying."
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL


Stage Director for Cavalleria Rusticana and Il Tabarro:

"Director Jay Lesenger cranked up the temperature and pace for Cavalleria and allowed Il Tabarro to unfold at a more leisurely pace."
OPERA NEWS

"Director Jay Lesenger cranked up the tension and temperature in Cavalleria; long before the final murderous outburst, we could taste the violence in the air. For Tabarro, he set a heavier pace-brooding rather than bristling, but just as inevitably headed for disaster."
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

"Director Jay Lesenger has refashioned, quite orthodoxly, but with a fresh eye, these familiar scenarios.Much of the dramatic scheme works and restores what can be tired rituals to revelations for the eye. As composers use silence, so Lesenger sometimes chooses the visually static to balance and contrast the intensity of the musical scores."
ORANGE COUNTY OPERA REVIEW

Stage Director for The Magic Flute:

"Working with a cast of young, largely unknown singers, conductor Georg Tintner and stage director Jay Lesenger have fashioned a jewel of a show that brings out the best in just about everyone - Mozart above all. It's hard to know what to admire first in a Magic Flute that's so well balanced, brightly humored, directly engaging and musically poised as this one. It's perfect Mozart; no megastars, but light everywhere. From the purposeful movement of the characters and chorus to the free-wheeling stage business of Papageno, director Lesenger could do no wrong."
THE DETROIT NEWS

"Jay Lesenger's newly-devised stage direction went along with these ideas, and it must be said he made them quite convincing."
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS


"Lesenger's direction emphasizes the idea that the characters are real people set in a mythical landscape, rather than fairy tale creatures, and this is consistent with the deep humanism expressed in the libretto and in Mozart's glorious score."
THE BERGEN RECORD

Stage Director for Lohengrin:

"Of course, Wagner was the master of the spectacle. But spectacle can. in the wrong hands, be plunged into confusion and absurdity. Director Jay Lesenger never let this happen. Lesenger was genius at controlling the pace of incidents on stage, the accumulation of occurrences, the balance between active and static moments. The stage never appeared cluttered, though there were 75 to 100 performers milling around. Last night there was incredible attention riveted to the stage. Although it cost only $125,000 to produce, it looks far more expensive. It's full of pageantry, splendid sets and costumes and it's visually tasteful down to the minutest detail."
ENTERTAINMENT

Stage Director for Cosi fan tutte:

"Stage director Jay Lesenger has trimmed the recitatives in da Ponte's libretto to give the story unusual dramatic thrust. The magic of this production lies in Lesenger's ability to draw an invisible line between the comic and serious sides of this often-misunderstood work. The laughs are all there, yet the music itself is treated with uncanny earnestness, making each aria and ensemble an essay on the problematic relations between men and women. Lesenger's unique feeling for the depth of this opera makes this an offering that is intensely passionate throughout; horseplay - although present in pleasant proportions - seldom interferes with the concern for the fundamental issues that dominates this production. "
DAILY CAMERA

"Stage Director Jay Lesenger picks every precious nuance from the piece. Lesenger's direction is particularly engaging, excising every nickel's worth of humor from a cast that clearly loves working together. There is a joy here rare in any theatrical production, and the viewer exits the theater elated-not from the laughter alone but also from the precision ensemble effort, the perfection of music, and performance from every member of the cast."
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Stage Director for Turandot:

"Hawaii Opera Theater is fortunate to have Jay Lesenger, a man of taste with an eye for balance and symmetry, to direct the massive forces "Turandot" requires: not only the Opera Theater Chorus but the Hawaii Children's Opera Chorus, the Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club, and executioner and his troop of men, several hand maidens, and of course the principals. The result is a sumptuous feast for the eye, handsome and hugh, with intelligent blocking almost consistently. The metamorphoses were big-toned dramatic, thanks to the precise blocking imposed by director Jay Lesenger."
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN

"Stage Director Jay Lesenger successfully keeps the densely populated sections
from lapsing into mere crowd control."
THE HONOLULU ADVERTISER

"The essence of this production's success must rest with its director, Jay Lesenger, a member of the New York City Opera staging staff for more than six years. Lesenger's art is in his pacing of incidents; the speeding up and slowing down of events, the balance of active and static moments, the sensitivity of the right number of seconds between segments. Characterizations are clearly drawn, well-differentiated and convincing. Great sweeps of melody carry one beyond blood and thunder to tragic Puccini visions of doomed suffering humanity, jealousy, anguish. The production is a revelation in movement. It's as if the chorus and supers are trained dancers, movement is so fluid."
THE TRIBUNE

"Jay Lesenger's stage direction was masterful. He has a well developed feeling for the pageantry of this opera, and the various processions had a graceful realism. "
THE SAN DIEGO UNION

Stage Director for L'Elisir d'Amore:

"What came as a pleasant surprise was the warmth and naturalness of Jay Lesenger's staging. There were no moth-eaten sight gags, the principal characters were lovable and funny, and the choristers moved and acted like real people."
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

"Stage Director Jay Lesenger keeps the cast moving on the multi-leveled set, and he places the background chorus all over the stage. There is always plenty to watch but not so much as to steal from the main action."
THE BRADENTON HERALD

Stage Director for La Traviata:

"The staging by Jay Lesenger was well done. The performer's movements were natural and meaningful-no energy was wasted, and their intents were always clear. The scene at Flora's Party in Scene II of Act II was vibrant, exciting and colorful; probably the best of the entire evening."
GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

"Jay Lesenger, the company's artistic director, staged the opera with taste, common sense and respect for the score. Lesenger is on the faculty of the University of Michigan's School of Music, where his stagings often grace that school's opera theater productions. His affiliation with the Opera Company of Mid-Michigan would seem to bode well for the company's future."
DETROIT FREE PRESS


Stage Director for Werther:

"Director Jay Lesenger didn't try for anything innovative,preferring to play it close to the composer's vest. But in the last act he let high drama have its due; there was nothing to suggest Victorian repression here. In fact, he followed the natural curve of the score and libretto suggest: the first act capitalizing on a tableau of German bourgeoisie; the second focused on deepening relationships; and the third, a picture of full-blown tragedy."
HERALD EXAMINER

"Director Jay Lesenger found sensitive keys to the work's melodramatic mysteries."
OPERA NEWS

Stage Director for Madame Butterfly:

"Director Jay Lesenger has made ingenious use of the opaque panels by projecting silhouettes on them at dramatic moments, such as the end of Act I and the scene during the second act in which Butterfly and her child watch for Pinkerton's return."
NEW YORK TIMES

"Director Jay Lesenger turned back to Puccini's Brescia version of May 1904 as the basis for the festival's intimate visually striking production. The emphasis here shifts from a tight closeup on the individual tragedies of Butterfly and Pinkerton to a wide shot that takes in the clash of the cultures they embody.There is a sharp distinction to be drawn here-between what Lesenger has done in reviving a nonstandard version of "Butterfly" and what Peter Sellers, for instance, did in making Don Giovanni a drug dealer in Spanish Harlem. This is the precise distinction between a genuinely new look at an old work, a look that preserves and respects its integrity, and a "revisionist" production that respects nothing other than the director's most recent flight of fancy."
MUSIC IN NEW JERSEY

"Jay Lesenger's extremely romantic direction of an unusual version of this opera contributed to a moving experience for the audience. He selected a version of this opera which was initially performed in 1904. The version performed by the Opera Festival still presents Pinkerton in a somewhat arrogant light but adds an aria in the second half of Act II which may create more sympathy from the audience toward this character. This in turns serves to add to the drama and tragedy of the story."
TOWN TOPICS-PRINCETON, NJ


Stage Director for The Merry Widow:

"The direction by Jay Lesenger was fluent and artistic to the highest levels of professionalism and the acting lived up to the directing.:
GANNETT DAILY NEWS

Stage Director for Don Giovanni:

"At least the production has held up better than most revivals here. Thanks to director Jay Lesenger and lighting designer Dawn Chiang, Henry's ladies and courtiers took attractive poses in Ming Cho Lee's cleanly stylized Windsor Castle."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Stage Director for Anna Bolena:

"What emerges after the soloists is the professional staging by Jay Lesenger (debut) on the pattern developed by Tito Capobianco. Within the Gothic scenic box of Ming Cho Lee the action is consistently persuasive, thanks to a few changes of stairs, garden chairs, doorways and Tower of London chambers."
VARIETY

Stage Director for The Ballad of Baby Doe:

“Director Jay Lesenger staged the opera with an almost cinematic eye, manipulating the audiences eyes and emotions precisely where he wanted them for maximum effect. All in all the production was a dramatic hit.”
THE TIMES PICAYUNE
“Jay Lesenger’s direction kept the story moving and created the illusion of large crowds when needed.”
THE ADVOCATE


2000/2001 SEASON Press Acclaim:

Der Rosenkavalier - Opera Pacific

“And we have to say we were a little shocked by the stage direction of Jay Lesenger. Where does a mere director, we would like to know, get off showing so much understanding of the music and then have the gall to illuminate it” We actually heard new things in Strauss’s score because of what Lesenger choreographed on stage. Without asking a soul to do anything unduly busy or histrionic, the singers and actors indicated the moods and mannerisms heard in the bustling instrumental parts, down to quite subtle detail.”
Orange County Register

“Jay Lesenger’s intelligently worked out staging brought characters into delicately intimate groupings.”
Opera News

Falstaff - Chautauqua Opera

“Jay Lesenger’s deft direction is matched by excellent singing and conducting, which may even surpass the fine performance seven years ago when this attractive production was unveiled at Chautauqua.”
The Chautauquan Daily

“Director Jay Lesenger gave the production a wonderful feeling of forward motion and clear unrolling of the plot. The characters are believable and the production delightful.”
The Post Journal (Jamestown)

“Jay Lesenger has come to grips with all the potential pitfalls quite successfully in staging this tale of the corpulent Falstaff’s attempted seduction of two married women and his royal comeuppance. Verdi’s score is chock full of rhythmic and lyrical devices that underscore the stage direction, and Lesenger doesn’t miss a trick - a couple of quick head ticks to accompany two rhythmic accents in the orchestra, a sweeping slow, gestural bow to the tune of a mocking glissando.”
The Buffalo News

La Traviata - Chautauqua Opera

“ DIRECTOR LENDS THE RIGHT TOUCH. Director Jay Lesenger’s measured but dramatic approach to the staging of La Traviata was forecast in the way he used the entire four-minute expanse of the lovely opening orchestral prelude for a very slow, gradual illumination of the darkened stage....Lesenger is able to maintain a curve of dramatic intensity.”
The Buffalo News


“Director Jay Lesenger has staged a production with outstanding production values, which is musically valid and yet which is dramatically thrilling, as well.”
The Post Journal (Jamestown)
“The stage direction was colorful and appropriate and things moved along with dramatic cogency.”
The Chautauquan Daily


Hansel and Gretel - Chautauqua Opera

“It is a bright, intelligent staging of the opera, and works very well on that level alone, but it’s packed with little inside jokes which will warm the hearts of frequent Chautauqua visitors without straying over the line into smugness.”
The Post Journal (Jamestown)

 

JAY LESENGER
STAGE DIRECTOR

Operatic Productions

THE ATLANTA OPERA

Turandot - 1994

Macbeth - 1993

Don Giovanni - 1993

L'Elisir d'Amore - 1991

Tosca - 1991

Die Fledermaus - 1990

The Marriage of Figaro - 1990

Ariadne auf Naxos - 1988

The Merry Widow - 1988

Cosi Fan Tutte - 1987

Abduction from the Seraglio - 1986

 

CENTRAL CITY OPERA

Cosi Fan Tutte - 1990

 

FLORENTINE OPERA (Milwaukee)

Ariadne auf Naxos - 1990

TV Broadcast - Wisconsin PBS

 

HAWAII OPERA THEATER

Don Giovanni - 1989

Turandot - 1988

 

HOLLYBUSH FESTIVAL (Glassboro)

L'Italiana in Algeri - 1990
 

Madama Butterfly (Brescia) - 1994

LaTraviata - 1993

Il Trovatore - 1992

 

OPERA COLUMBUS (Ohio)

Ariadne auf Naxos - 1994

 

OPERA FESTIVAL OF NEW JERSEY (Princeton)

Madama Butterfly (Brescia)- 1992

 

OPERA GRAND RAPIDS

The Pirates of Penzance - 1993

La Traviata - 1992

Hansel and Gretel - 1991

Don Pasquale - 1991

 

OPERA LANSING

Tosca - 1988

La Traviata - 1987

 

OPERA PACIFIC (Costa Mesa)

Samson st Dalilah - 1992

Cavalleria Rusticana /Pagliacci - 1991

 

OPERA SOUTHWEST

Tosca - 1989

 

PITTSBURGH OPERA

The Magic Flute - 1990, 1983

Don Giovanni - 1984

 

PORTLAND OPERA

La Boheme - 1994

La Traviata - 1993

 

SAN DIEGO OPERA

Anna Bolena - 1984

Lohengrin - 1983

Turandot - 1982

Werther - 1980

 

SARASOTA OPERA

Cavalleria/Il Tabarro - 1987

 

KNOXVILLE OPERA COMPANY

Die Fledermaus - 1993

Les Contes d'Hoffmann - 1992

The Barber of Seville - 1991

Don Giovanni - 1991

The Magic Flute - 1989

 

MICHIGAN OPERA THEATRE

Samson et Dalilah - 1992

The Magic Flute - 1991

 

ORLANDO OPERA

La Boheme - 1990

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK CITY OPERA

Anna Bolena - 1989,

Fall 1980 (Opening Night)

The Magic Flute - 1982, 1984

Street Scene - 1990

(O'Brian production)

Don Giovanni - Fall 1981

(revised production)

Rigoletto (Corsaro production)

Love for Three Oranges

(Capobianco production)

 

OPERA CAROLINA (Charlotte)

L'Elisir d'Amore - 1986

 

 

TIBBITS SUMMER THEATRE (Michigan)

The Pirates of Penzance - 1983

 

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN OPERA THEATRE

Marriage of Figaro - 1989, 1983

Angelica/Schicchi - 1988

The Coronation of Poppea - 1988

La Rondine - 1987

The Turn of the Screw - 1987

The Magic Flute - 1986

The Merry Widow - 1986

Cosi Fan Tutte - 1985

Falstaff - 1985

Hansel and Gretel - 1984

 

VIRGINIA OPERA

Ariadne auf Naxos - 1990