Francesca Zambello

Francesca Zambello (born 1956) is a leading American opera and theatre director. Zambello lived in Europe when she was a child, learning to speak French, Italian, German and Russian. She attended Moscow University in 1976 and graduated from Colgate University in 1978.

She began her career as an Assistant Director to the celebrated opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. From 1984 to 1991 she was the Artistic Director of the Skylight Music Theater in Milwaukee. In recent years she has worked at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Washington Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the Bolshoi, Teatro la Fenice in Venice, the Royal Opera in London and the Paris Opera, as well as for the Seattle Children's Theatre, BBC Television, and the Bregenz Festival. She is an Artistic Advisor to the San Francisco Opera.

She has won awards for her work in France, England, Japan, Germany, Russia and Australia (the Helpmann Award).

Zambello made her Broadway directorial debut with the muscal production of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" (2008). She is directing the musical version of "Little House on the Prairie", which started its run at the Guthrie Theater in July 2008.

External links

* [http://www.francescazambello.com Official site]
* [http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/buniverse/videos/view/?id=174 Interview at BUniverse]