Anna Etsuko Tsuri has been active as an internationally-experienced opera stage director for more than 15+ years.  Her directed productions were performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, The Queens Museum in NY, New Studio Theatre  in Vienna, Spikeri Concert Hall in Riga, New National Theater in Tokyo and others.

 

Anna's production of "Erwartung," by Schoenberg, in Vienna in April 2008 was an especially big success.  The Schoenberg family came from the US to Vienna to see this performance and praised Anna highly, saying:

 

"My father (the composer, Arnold Schönberg) would have wished for this exact direction. It was very musical and the scenes are exactly according to the text, despite its very complicated content."

 

She has been broadcasted on NHK, Japan's national TV network, World Flowers Network JFN, a Japanese radio station, and interviewed in Diana, Latvia's largest newspaper, London-based opera magazine Opera Now, the weekly newspaper NY Shukan Seikatsu and Tamariba.com, among others. In 2009 NHK made her the main focus of the one-hour-long documentary "Etsuko Tsuri, opera director in Vienna at Tomohiro Sekiguchi and First Japanese“. The conductor Maestro ‪Seiji Ozawa was featured in the documentary, and lavished Anna with praise:

 

"Ms.Tsuri is great!  She knows everything about the day-to-day operations of opera.  I'm certain that she'll become a key figure in the Japanese Opera world.  I work on the music side and Anna creates opera on the stage side.  She is an expert not only in directing but also in lighting, scenery, etc.  She does magnificent work at the Vienna State Opera.  I feel positively about her career."

 

 

She has a strong classic music background and, since her youth, has been a musical actor, pianist, flutist and conductor so she is quite familiar with the stage. After she graduated from music college in Tokyo with a degree in flute and conducting, she moved to Europe to start opera directing and earned her master's degree in Opera Directing at Die Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien as the first Japanese Student there.

 

Beside her studies, Anna worked on over 80 productions in her 10-year stay in Europe at international opera houses such as the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Komische Opera Berlin, Théâtre du Soleil à Paris, Bayreuth Youth Music Festival, Dortmunt Opera House, Bregenz Festival, Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, where she worked as assistant stage director, assistant set designer, production assistant, lighting and wardrobe crew, assistant orchestra manager, chorus manager assistant, assistant producer and more.

 

 

Anna like to include traditional pieces, as well as contemporary pieces in her repertoire: La Cenerentola by Rossini and La Nozze Di Figaro, La Finta Giardniera and Schauspieldirektor by Mozart, Hansel and Gretel by Humperdink, Bergknappen by Umlauf, Erwartung by Schonberg, Noli Me Tangere by Filipe P. De Leon, Song Books by John Cage and The Mountain and the Valley by Ishmael Wallace, which was the world premiere. 

Anna’s talents are many and her skills are multifaceted. In addition to her many directing credits, she designed the lighting most of her productions and also for the contemporary opera Dwarf composed by Yoaf Gal and directed by Doug Fitch and choreographed Frolicking with the Birds with music by Marty Regan and the world premiere of The Mountain and the Valley by Ishmael Wallace.

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In 2015 Anna founded the non-for-profit organization Opera Pomme Rouge based in Queens, NY, an innovative place for new interactive opera series, and also created the Residence Artists Program. Anna’s goal is to help to young professional singers, pianists/coaches, and stage directors/managers to get anchored in the professional world.

 

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