Thaddeus Strassberger
Thaddeus Strassberger won the European Opera Prize in 2005 for direction and scenic design and earned a degree in Engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City; he received a Fulbright Fellowship to complete the Corso di Specializzazione per Scenografi Realizzatori at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 2001
Originally from the USA, Strassberger is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Italy and the USA, and lives and runs his studio from London. His work has taken him around to the world where he has created over 75 productions in more than fifteen countries, including Royal Opera House Covent Garden, LA Opera and Theater an der Wien.
He returned to direct and design a large scale open-air Aida at Oper im Steinbruch St. Margarethen in 2024, where in 2021, he directed Turandot which was seen by nearly 100,000 people in the historic quarry amphitheatre as well as broadcast live on ORF across Austria. He made his debut at Opera Royale de Wallonie with La Traviata, and returns in 2025 to open the season with Faust. He makes his debut with La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels with a new production of Benvenuto Cellini in 2026.
Recent new productions include: Boris Godunov and Werther (Tiroler Landestheater), Nabucco starring Placido Domingo and Anna Pirozzi (Palau de las Arts Reina Sofia in Valenica), Carmen (Danish National Opera), La clemenza di Tito (LA Opera) and Demon (Bard Summerscape, New York), Silent Light, a new work by Paola Prestini and Royce Vavrek (Banff Centre), La Fanciulla del West (NCPA Beijing), The Nutcracker (IU Ballet), and Nabucco (Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe).
His production of Satyagraha, the first production of a Philip Glass opera in Russia, won the 2014 Bravo Award for Best Production and was awarded two Golden Mask Awards. Also in Ekaterinburg he staged Weinberg’s The Passenger, which was also seen at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Martinu's A Greek Passion in a new Russian translation. These productions remain in repertoire at the Ural Opera and have collectively played more than 200 performances to eager audiences.
Other past productions include: Rigoletto, Andrea Chenier and The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe (Staatstheater Braunschweig), I due Foscari (Theater an der Wien, LA Opera, Palau de las Arts Valencia) and Le nozze di Figaro, The Rape of Lucretia, & Don Giovanni (The Norwegian Opera). World premieres include JFK (l’Opera de Montreal/Fort Worth) and GLARE (Covent Garden). Un ballo in maschera, Les contes de Hoffmann, & Pique Dame (Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck), a fully immersive full-scale Salome (Tulsa Opera), and Hamlet (Washington National Opera/Minnesota Opera/Fort Worth Opera/Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
For Bard Summerscape in New York, he created productions of Les Huguenots, Der ferne Klang, Le roi malgré lui (co-produced with Wexford Festival), his widely acclaimed production of Sergei Tanejev’s monumental opera, The Oresteia, the first staging of the neglected masterpiece to be seen outside of Russia, and Ethyl Smyth’s The Wreckers. This production of Nabucco has been seen with LA Opera, Washington National Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, and l’Opera de Montreal.
He served as Creative Director for Riyadh Season Opening Parade Ceremonies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in October 2021. The event with a cast of nearly one thousand performers was produced by Balich Wonder Studios and was attended by over 500,000 live spectators and broadcast live on national television.
He has also served as a Creative Consultant on several large scale ceremonies and performances in Saudi Arabia, helping to shape the emerging creative identity of the culturally rich region. For Opera America, he has served on jury panels for grant awards totalling over half a million dollars. He has worked with the Young Artist Program participants in many major opera houses including LA Opera, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Minnesota Opera, The Houston Grand Opera, and IVAI in Italy