Cori Ellison, Dramaturg

CORI ELLISON, a leading creative figure in the opera world, is Dramaturg at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and serves on the Vocal Arts Faculty at The Juilliard School, as well the faculties of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute and the Crested Butte Opera Studio. Active in developing contemporary opera, she is a founding faculty member of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program, and was the first dramaturg invited to participate in the Yale Institute for Music Theatre. She was staff Dramaturg at New York City Opera from 1997-2010, where she was a curator of the annual VOX American Opera Showcase, helping to select the featured pieces and working with individual composers and librettists.In fall 2009, she co-founded and led New York City Opera’s ‘Words First’ program for the development of opera librettists. In addition, she is a sought-after consultant to numerous composers, librettists, and commissioners (including Glyndebourne, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, and Fort Worth Opera), and grant-makers including Opera America.

She has served as production dramaturg for projects including Washington National Opera’s Ring cycle, Opera Boston’s The Nose, and Offenbach!!! at Bard Summerscape. She also creates supertitles for opera companies and conservatories across America, and helped launch Met Titles, the Met’s simultaneous translation system. Her English singing translations include Hansel and Gretel (NYCO), La vestale (English National Opera) and Shostakovich’s Cherry Tree Towers (Bard Summerscape). She also writes for the New York Times, and has contributed to books including The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Metropolitan Opera Guide to Opera on Video, and The Compleat Mozart. She regularly appears on the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcasts, teaches master classes for young singers worldwide, and has lectured at venues including the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Santa Fe, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Seattle, and Canadian operas