Mary Birnbaum | Faculty Portrait

Vocal Arts Faculty

This summer Mary Birnbaum became the first woman since 1997 to direct the season opener at Santa Fe Opera. The production, La bohème, included alums Mario Chang, Will Liverman, and bass-baritone Tyler Zimmerman. Birnbaum grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, and majored in English and minored in French at Harvard. She and her husband, Justin Shane, a lawyer whose firm helps children with special needs get the help they need in New York City schools, are “owned by a wonderful cocker spaniel mutt named Greg who was in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.” She joined the Juilliard faculty in 2011 and is “always happy to meet anyone new for coffee or help navigate career choices.”

What was your path to becoming an opera director?
I was always interested in music and theater—when I was very little I was obsessed with an old Met video of Carmen (my father is a lawyer whose first passion is classical music), and I spent many days of my youth directing my little sister and unsuspecting neighbors in backyard dramas. One Saturday, my father and I were listening to the Metropolitan Opera’s Texaco broadcast and the director of the children’s chorus, Elena Doria, spoke about it. I auditioned, and got in, which led to the most exciting early opera experiences—to be on the stage of the Met with scenery that felt real, props that were real, and the vibrations of the singing and the orchestra—I was completely hooked on music theater.

I veered away from opera (but not singing) as a teen when I started to perform bigger roles in musicals and plays. My high school took our production of The Laramie Project to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and we got to do the London premiere of the piece off- West End the following spring. In college, I started directing and became fascinated by space, design, light and all the possibilities for the way you could tell a story collectively.

After college, I knew I needed some theater training for real. I had been a fan of directors who had gone to École Jacques Lecoq in Paris (Mnouchkine, Simon McBurney, Julie Taymor), so I went and learned the rigor of devising and felt what it was like to be in my body for the first time ever. It was life-changing and challenging, and a lot of the lessons I learned there I still use. When I got back to New York, I started a theater company that did pieces that were immersive and site-specific, and I emailed directors I respected to see whether I could assist them. Stephen Wadsworth [Juilliard’s director of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program] replied and invited me to assist him on Falstaff at Juilliard, which turned out to be one of my favorite production experiences ever.

I received Juilliard's new Vocal Arts directing fellowship, and since then, I have directed more and more opera and less and less theater. Opera is so alluring because there is a real emphasis on design and abstraction. But last year, I wanted to get back into theater, so I began working with Ari Edelson and the Orchard Project to create an arts accelerator called the Greenhouse, for directors, playwrights, composers, and choreographers. I highly recommend that anyone who is interested apply!

Who was the teacher or mentor who most inspired you when you were growing up?
My high school drama teacher, Linda Ames Key, who still teaches at Bronx School for the Arts. She created community and placed a value on the arts when there was none.

Your top advice for aspiring opera singers?

1. Get to know other elements of the theatrical craft. Spend time backstage and learning about tech theater—opera singers don’t attend tech, which blows my mind, and it’s no wonder that lighting is not as specific as it could possibly be.
2. Don’t try to please everyone—you won’t.
3. For every young artist—fail! Fail big, fail often.

What are you reading/following/watching?
I just read Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and loved it. I am also obsessed with Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood). I just finished Fleabag season two—brilliant—and I love Bravo shows. I’m always inspired by Leandro Ehrlich, the installation artist.

What question do you always get asked?
What is it like being a woman directing opera? But I don’t mind answering it. For the best answer ever, listen to Katie Mitchell’s Oxford lecture Woman Alone Directing Opera.

What do you wish you’d get asked?
Tell us more about your dog. I could write a book.