With his work described as “pure poetry” (Boston Globe), stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today.
Recent highlights include his “rich, seamless” (New York Times) production of The Black Clown, an adaptation of the Langston Hughes poem starring Davóne Tines with music by Michael Schachter, at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and the American Repertory Theater; his “darkly captivating” (New York Times) production of Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, with music by Tyshawn Sorey, text by Claudia Rankine, and starring Julia Bullock on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with the Nederlandse Reisopera in collaboration with design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero and visual artist Cynthia Talmadge; a new production of Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarrón starring Davóne Tines, also at the Met Museum; and a new piece for the Los Angeles Dance Project at the Luma Foundation in Arles, France. Recent highlights include Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea starring Anthony Roth Costanzo at the Cincinnati Opera; an immersive pairing of Gluck’s Orfeo and Matthew Aucoin’s Orphic Moment at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater; Monteverdi’s Il ballo delle Ingrate with William Christie, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Lotte de Beer at the Dutch National Opera and Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie with Stephen Wadsworth at Juilliard.
A truly multi-disciplinary artist, Winokur has collaborated with a diverse group of artists in a range of media, including Academy Award-nominated director Mike Figgis, pianist Rosey Chan, fashion house Boudicca, grime artist Pepstar, DJ crew A Tribe Called Red, artists Gerard & Kelly in venues from David Lynch’s Club Silencio, the Centre Pompidou, the Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House, the Royal Opera House and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Additional productions include the The New Prince (Dutch National Opera, world premiere), Svadba (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Grand Theatre de Luxembourg, European premiere), Dido and Aeneas (La Nuova Musica at St John’s Smith Square), A Flowering Tree (Opera Omaha), Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, La Monnaie, Aldeburgh Music, DNO), Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Central City Opera, Juilliard Opera), Most of the Boys (Royal Opera House, world premiere), Mesh (International Contemporary Ensemble, world premiere), Triptych (Museum of Arts and Design), and a restaging of Episode 31 by Alexander Ekman for the Joffrey Ballet.