ABOUT ENCOMPASS NEW OPERA THEATRE
Over 35 Years of Excellence

ENCOMPASS ARTISTIC STAFF

Nancy Rhodes (Artistic Director/Librettist), a champion of American Opera, staged the world premiere of Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe for San Francisco Opera, Virgil Thomson’s Lord Byron at Alice Tully Hall, new operas for the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra and Pittsburgh Opera Theatre. Internationally, she directed Death In Venice (Stockholm), Carmen (Oslo), Happy End (Finland), Kiss Me Kate (Ankara, filmed for TV), West Side Story (Istanbul), and Eccentrics, Outcasts and Visionaries: A Century of American Opera for the Holland Festival (Amsterdam). At Encompass she staged over 50 operas, including Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, Blitzstein’s Regina, Britten’s Phaedra, and Antheil’s Transatlantic. She co-conceived/directed Only Heaven with composer Ricky Ian Gordon, with poetry by Langston Hughes. Her acclaimed production of Grigori Frid’s opera The Diary of Anne Frank toured to Cleveland Opera. As Vice President/U.S. Delegate to the International Theatre Institute, Rhodes has conducted workshops and been a guest speaker in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, Korea, Holland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Estonia. In June 2004, she was invited to direct the first American musical ever staged in the country of Albania at the National Opera House and filmed for television. She is currently the commissioned librettist of The Theory of Everything, a new opera inspired by physics’ superstring theory of multiple dimensions and alternate universes.  The Soul of the American Actor refers to Nancy as "a champion of American Opera".  Read the Full Interview.

Mara Waldman (Music Director) graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with a Master’s degree in piano and made her Carnegie Hall debut to critical acclaim. She was a winner in the New York Chopin Foundation Council International Auditions, the International Piano Recording Competition and recorded the solo piano music by Vittorio Rieti for Columbia Records. She made her conducting debut with the Bel Canto Opera Company and was Artistic Director of the company for two years. Ms. Waldman has been a cover conductor for the New York City Opera, and for the national tours of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Traviata. She has been a guest conductor and teacher with the New Operafestival di Roma since 1999. She has appeared with the New York Grand Opera in concerts, opera productions, and prepared the chorus for several operas in the Viva Verdi Festival in Central Park to critical acclaim. She is president of the Leschetizky Association and past president of the New York Singing Teachers’ Association. She was a coach at the AIMS program in Graz, Austria, and the Southampton Chamber Festival, and has been Music Director for the Black Hills Festival on the Arts Vocal Program.