Michael Patrick Albano Senior Lecturer, Opera BA (Windsor) Email: michael.albano@utoronto.ca
		Michael Patrick Albano is the resident stage director of the Opera training programme at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where he has staged over twenty-five operas including the Canadian premières of Debussy’s L’Enfant Prodigue, Paisiello’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan and the Toronto premiere of Offenbach’s Barbe-Bleu. Mr. Albano’s guest directorial credits include Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the New York City Opera and Wolf Trap, La Bohème for the Canadian Opera Company, Le Comte Ory for the Manhattan School of Music, Le Nozze di Figaro for the Yale School of Music, a new dialogue version of Die Fledermaus for Opera Kentucky, The Abduction from the Seraglio for Opera Hamilton, Hansel and Gretel for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, La Fille du Régiment for L’Opéra de Montréal and Verdi’s La Traviata for the Opera Festival of New Jersey. Mr. Albano has written three original children’s opera librettos; The Very Last Green Thing and The Thunder of Horses - the latter based upon Blackfoot Indian legends. Both operas, although originally commissioned by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, have had many successful mountings throughout North America. In 2004, Mr. Albano was commissioned by the Washington Opera to write and direct a new children’s opera, The Enchantment of Dreams, which was premiered at the Kennedy Centre. In December of 2005, Mr. Albano was commissioned by Canadian Opera Children’s Chorus to furnish an original libretto based upon Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The result was A Dickens of a Christmas, presented at the Harbourfront theatre in December of 2005 and revived this past December. Additional libretto commissions include Gianni (based on the life of the baroque composer, Giovanni Pergolesi), for Opera Lyra, The Last Duel (with music by Gary Kulesha) for MusicCanada 2000 and Loss of Eden, (based on the lives of Charles and Ann Lindbergh) which was premiered in June of 2002 by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and subsequently repeated in Minneapolis. Mr. Albano’s interest in the development of original opera librettos has led to his involvement for the past ten seasons as resident dramaturge for the Tapestry New Opera Works annual composer/librettist laboratory. Last season, Mr. Albano directed the premiere of Swoon, commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company with music by James Rolfe and an original libretto by Anna Chatterton. He will return to the COC in April of 2008 to direct Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.