BIO
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Staufenbiel: Tenor (longer version) (shorter version)
Staufenbiel: Director (longer version) (shorter version)
Brian Staufenbiel is the head of the Opera Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His directing credits include Bizet's Carmen; Donizetti's The Elixir of Love; Menotti's The Medium; Puccini's Gianni Schicchi; Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute; Weill's Street Scene; and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for which he was awarded the first prize in the National Opera Association Opera competition in New York in 2007.
Staufenbiel has also directed at the Seoul Contemporary Opera Company the Korean premiere of David Jones' opera Bardos and the reprise of Chan-Hae Lee's latest opera Back to the Origins. He has also been guest director in the Sherbrooke Summer Music Festival, where he directed works by Ravel and Honegger. He returned to the festival in Summer 2007 to direct and perform in the semi-staged version of Handel's Jephtha.
In 2007, Staufenbiel also directed the world premiere performance of the final version of Lou Harrison's opera Young Caesar with San Francisco's Ensemble Parallèle.
As a tenor, he has sung the leading roles in Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri; Britten's The Rape of Lucretia; Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirèsias; Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges; Kurt Weill's Mahagonny; and Mechem's Tartuffe. Staufenbiel has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Rochester Bach Festival in New York State, and sings frequently throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
In addition to live performances, Staufenbiel has recorded for Musical Heritage Society; Koch International Classics; and Helicon Records, music by Alessandro Stradella, Heinrich Schütz, Lou Harrison, and Paul Bowles. His most recent recording includes the world premiere recordings of tenor arias from Lou Harrison's opera Young Caesar and The Mass for the Feast of Saint Cecilia (Kleos records).
The Staufenbiel/Scharrón Duo has performed from coast to coast, Argento's Letters from Composers set as a one-man opera. The duo recently completed a CD recording of works by Britten, Argento, and Adler (commissioned work).