This spring, Elkhanah Pulitzer makes Met debut with house premiere of John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra
(April 2025) — 21C Media Group is thrilled to welcome groundbreaking director Elkhanah Pulitzer to its roster of artists as she prepares for her Metropolitan Opera debut with the house premiere of her “visually stunning, well-paced production” (Opera News) of John Adams’s newest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, with bass-baritone Gerald Finleyand soprano Julia Bullock returning to their title roles following the 2023 European debut production in Barcelona, tenor Paul Appleby as Caesar, and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Caesar’s sister and Antony’s forsaken wife, Octavia. The libretto was adapted from Shakespeare’s tragedy by Adams himself, in consultation with Pulitzer and dramaturg Lucia Scheckner. They added supplementary passages from Plutarch, Virgil, and other classical texts, and collaborated to combine the mythic image of antiquity with the glamor of 1930s Hollywood (May 12–June 7). In the midst of the run at the Met, the multisensory performance series, FRAGMENTS, that Pulitzer directed for cellist Alisa Weilerstein continues with a performance of Part 3 in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (May 20), followed by all six parts of the series – the first performance of the project in its entirety – at Spoleto USA (May 26–31). Upcoming projects for the director also include her production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck at Berkeley’s West Edge Opera, and the world premiere, in November, of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard at LA Opera with Beth Morrison Projects.
John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra at the Met (May 12–June 7)
Pulitzer Prize winner John Adams first approached Pulitzer in 2016 – with an emailed invitation to have coffee – after reading reviews of her production of Lulu at Berkeley’s West Edge Opera. As she recalls of that first meeting:
“The thing that struck me the most – that I will always remember – is that I left feeling so elated because I had met someone who I revere so much as an artist who’s also such a wonderful person. I was floored at the prospect of entering that level of collaboration with such a peak talent but also such a gloriously decent and fun human being.”
They have gone on to forge a deep working relationship, and she has directed his Nixon in China with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Gospel According to the Other Marywith San Francisco Symphony, among other works. Adams turned to her once again when he was commissioned by San Francisco Opera to write a new Antony and Cleopatra to celebrate the company’s centennial during the 2022–23 season, with Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Metropolitan Opera as co-commissioners. Pulitzer brought on dramaturg Lucia Scheckner, whom she met during their time as graduate students in theater at Columbia, and the three of them worked together to adapt Shakespeare’s play. Pulitzer elaborates:
“We built a trajectory of basic themes. One was the public/private toggle between how we perceive them and how they’re crafting their public image and then the aspect of them as messy people behaving badly in their private lives, sort of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The other was the transition from peak moments of Antony and Cleopatra as godlike in their power – lovers and politicos who are ruling the world – to their collapse during the rise of their adversary, Octavian, who rebrands as Augustus and becomes the first Roman Emperor who lays waste to the Roman Republic. So there is this resonance between every action as both a public action and private blow that results in the great lover-god-politicians.”
In a feature story in Opera News, Pulitzer – who describes herself as “patently a feminist and profoundly interested in centering empowered women’s stories in history” – discussed being particularly inspired by the character of Cleopatra:
“It’s Plutarch’s account – and Shakespeare’s – of Antony and Cleopatra that we get to read today. We don’t usually get to read hers. … She’s known for the most famous quote – ‘her infinite variety.’ She’s multifaceted, a powerhouse – one of thegreatest Shakespearean heroines. … That was very much a compelling reason to take the call to participate in this project.”
Pulitzer’s production was praised after the San Francisco premiere by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman, who found that the director “never lets conceptual trappings obscure the human realities at work.” The Financial Times likewise found the director’s work to be “smart and focused,” while San Francisco Classical Voice found that “everything onstage – singers, sets, lighting – works together with an organic sense of rightness.”
FRAGMENTS for cellist Alisa Weilerstein
Alisa Weilerstein’s FRAGMENTS weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six unique programs, each an hour long, for solo cello. All six programs are performed without pauses, applause or program details in a multisensory production directed by Pulitzer, with artistic producer and advisor Hanako Yamaguchi, responsive lighting and architectural elements by Seth Reiser, and original costumes by Molly Irelan. Commenting on the upcoming Spoleto performances, which mark the first time Weilerstein will have performed the whole work in one setting, Pulitzer says:
“It’s a really special project – there’s so much care and respect and thoughtfulness and it’s evolved so beautifully. I’m pleased with how we’ve discovered ways into the material and the variations, both from piece to piece and in the larger marathon. In terms of discourse, it’s going to be really cool to see what that’s like with what amounts to one collective audience in Spoleto.”
The first two parts of FRAGMENTS will have their UK premiere during Weilerstein’s upcoming 2025–26 residency at London’s Southbank Centre.
Wozzeck at West Edge Opera
When Pulitzer directed Alban Berg’s Lulu at West Edge Opera in 2015 – attracting the attention of John Adams – the San Francisco Chronicle raved that the production was “powerfully impressive … fearless in its dramatic imagination,” while San Francisco Classical Voice called it “monumentally memorable … the sold-out audience was treated to a superbly realized experience.” Pulitzer returns to the company this summer to direct Berg’s first operatic masterpiece, Wozzeck. Berg also adapted the libretto for the opera, basing it on the posthumously published fragments of the play Woyzeck by iconoclastic German author Georg Büchner, who is considered to have been part of the literary and philosophical reaction against Romanticism known as Young Germany. Büchner’s story – about the madness and alienation of a soldier trapped in poverty and persecuted by authority figures – proved to be the ideal vehicle for one of the 20th century’s most influential operas. The West End production stars baritone Hadleigh Adams – also a veteran of San Francisco Opera’s world premiere of Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra – in the title role.
World premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard
Composer-librettist Sarah Kirkland Snider‘s compositions have been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe) and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Primarily known for her orchestral and chamber works, Snider approaches opera for the first time with Hildegard, which also marks LA Opera’s 17th collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects, known as the creative producer that “more than any other … has helped propel the art form into the 21st century” (Opera News). Snider’s story takes place in 1147, when Hildegard von Bingen, despite the threat of being branded a heretic, decides to document the visions she is receiving from God, enlisting her fellow nun Richardis von Stade to illustrate the manuscript and developing a forbidden romantic attachment to her in the process. The work was commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival, and features, along with Pulitzer’s direction, projections designed by multimedia artist and frequent Snider collaborator Deborah Johnson. Scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg, costume designer Molly Irelan, and lighting designer Pablo Santiago round out the creative team.
About Elkhanah Pulitzer
Elkhanah Pulitzer is a highly esteemed opera director known for her bold, nuanced stage direction that explores the intersection of music and theater through innovation and hybridized forms, creating compelling and visually stunning productions. Recent projects include directing John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra, which premiered at San Francisco Opera in September 2022; she makes her Metropolitan Opera directorial debut with this production in May 2025. Other recent highlights include a new production of Handel’s Julius Caesar with Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June 2024, and European productions of David Lang’s prisoner of the state, which premiered at the New York Philharmonic in 2019.
Additionally this season, Pulitzer continues her collaboration with cellist Alisa Weilerstein directing FRAGMENTS, a groundbreaking, multi-year project for solo cello that weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works. The third installment of FRAGMENTS will be performed at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall on May 20, 2025, with the second installment having been seen in the venue this past January.
Past projects include a live tour of Esperanza Spalding’s album 12 Little Spells; and DIORAMA, an art installation at the I.O.U. in San Francisco. Pulitzer has directed projects with the Los Angeles Philharmonic including John Adams’s Nixon in China and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, the latter of which was also staged at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. She has also directed John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary at the San Francisco Symphony, and Lucia di Lammermoor and Judas Maccabaeus at Los Angeles Opera.
Pulitzer directed Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at San Francisco Opera in 2013 and returned to serve as Artistic Curator of SF Opera Lab, an experimental chamber opera two-year program from 2015-17, where she developed the mission, brand, and programming. She has directed multiple productions at West Edge Opera, among them Alban Berg’s Lulu, Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, and Luca Francesconi’s Quartett. She has collaborated on next-generation projects with Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and the Canadian Opera Company. Theater directing credits include work with Impact Theater, Cutting Ball, Riverside Theater, and Ensemble Theatre Company.
Pulitzer was honored with the Opera America Success Award for her libretto for Dream of the Pacific, an opera composed by Stephen Mager, commissioned and performed by Opera Theatre of St. Louis. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley in Theatre Arts, and holds an MFA from Columbia in Directing. Born in Boston and raised in St. Louis and Marin, Pulitzer also serves as board vice president of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, which advances experimentation in art curation, installation and live programming.
Elkhanah Pulitzer: upcoming directorial engagements
May 12, 15, 20, 24, 30; June 3, 7
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera (debut)
John Adams, conductor
Gerald Finley: Antony
Julia Bullock: Cleopatra
John ADAMS: Antony and Cleopatra
May 20
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall)
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
FRAGMENTS 3
May 26, 28, 29, 31
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
FRAGMENTS 1–6
Aug 9, 14, 17
Berkeley, CA
West Edge Opera
BERG: Wozzeck
Sep 27
London, UK
Southbank Centre
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
FRAGMENTS 1 & 2 (UK premiere)
Nov 5, 6, 8, 9
Los Angeles, CA
LA Opera (The Wallis)
Sarah Kirkland SNIDER: Hildegard (world premiere)