(Photo credit: Louis Chan / David Allen)

What does the future look like for female directors in opera? Opera San José, the opera company in the heart of Silicon Valley, California, now entering its 41^st season, gives OperaWire a look at two young trailblazers: the current CEO and General Director, Shawna Lucey, and Michelle Ainna Cuizon, presently in residence and about to make her Directorial debut with “La Boheme.” Together they share a vast imagination, hard-work ethic and strong sense for knowing how their work impacts the field.

OperaWire’s interview with both, makes it clear how women are bringing more than just their presence to the world of opera.

Meet Shawna Lucey

Shawna Lucey brings with her a feast of varied experience. “I began in acting,” she said, detailing her academic accomplishments completing degrees in Theater and Italian at the University of Texas in Austin, “then I moved to Russia and completed a Master’s degree at the Boris Schukin Theatre Institute of the Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow. There I worked in traditional theater physical action, fencing, rhythmics, directing, and dance.”

Having worked with the Bread and Puppet Theater, when she directed and designed her first project in Moscow, she created a puppet version of Primo Levi’s “If This is a Man,” which was performed in Moscow and then went on tour. As the only American (and sole foreigner) in a class of Russians, Shawna learned first-hand not only how to blend multi-disciplinary traditions of dance, music and puppetry with narrative, but as the sole American in her program, how to work with differentness and collaborators. In fact, it was collaboration that became a benchmark of her developing work.

“Then, I didn’t know a lot about opera,” Shawna laughed. “But, what happened next was dumb luck that changed my life. I participated in an orchestral reading of Verdi’s ‘Falstaff,’ and it was love at first note.”  She laughed again. “Because of my strong interest in how to affect an audience as a performer, as a director I realized that with music, I could do even more.”

Further, she began to explore the many different ways a performance could answer an audience need as well. “I began to ask,” Shawna said, “what the audience was clamoring for. It was crucial for the performance to satisfy that need. I studied the work of various opera personae – singers like Quinn Kelsey, J’nai Bridges, Rachel Sorensen, Aileen Perez; and directors, like Paula Suozzi, Jen Good, Matthew Shilvock,” and studied how the wealth of their skills helps bring life to a performance. That’s, after all, what the audience came for, something real, something live, and, definitely, something whole. Unless these artists bring their talents into the total performance effectively, the whole project will not come alive.

Collaboration was one key, Shawna emphasized, for them and for her as director. A newer model of authority seems at work in her artistic vision. Performance was not to rest only in the hands of the director. “It was/is very important to work with the performers above all, to listen to whatever they are trying to say,” and so make the whole process and the performance inclusive. Shawna stressed how much she benefited from her mentors and that one of her key goals is to provide the artists in her productions with the same gift. As she said, “my mission is to nurture new talent.” Directing in this way can smooth the way for this to happen.

When she came back to the U.S., she took another degree, this time a Masters of Science in non-profit art.

Then, she worked at Santa Fe Opera, Houston Opera, San Francisco Opera, among others, and realized too that it is crucial nowadays to show women characters as more than victims or weak-willed. We need to wrestle with these images in some way that remains faithful to the opera narrative and its music, but doesn’t fail to show women as also smart and powerful. One example is Nedda in “Pagliacci,” whom we can see as a smart woman, rather than not.

Then she added, as feminist directors, we must deal with the anger of women in the U.S. as well as elsewhere who know that in this field, and it is an uphill battle. “Where did your fierce direction come from?” I asked. “I had a strong feminist grandfather. He pushed me and my sister in this. I feel I am part of the chain of women moving through history.” She added, “I was sent  to a Catholic high school and I was under the watchful eye of the head nun who was a strong feminist. From her too, I learned that men were not always better at everything.”

This lively and articulate young woman wants to work on the international as well as domestic opera scene, and is very happily settled in San José with her young daughter. She sees the benefits for further development of the company, where she sees herself as an opera CEO, director, and a “global citizen.” Her upcoming directing projects include a new production of “Tosca” for the San Francisco Opera, “Falstaff” at Dallas Opera and “Pearl Fishers” at Santa Fe. In November, she will direct San José’s “Bluebeard’s Castle.”

Meet Michelle Ainna Cuizon

Michelle Ainna Cuizon, Resident Stage Director at Opera San José for the 2024–2025 season, on the other hand, started off singing. “I was a musical kid. I did Karaoke, where I grew up in the Philippines. Also, I sang in choirs and always saw music as a door opening, all kinds of music. At Manila University, for instance, I studied musical theater. Recognizing, however, how competitive the field was, I decided to become a voice major,” says Cuizon.

“My family had always had their hearts set on living in the U.S., and back in the 1980s, my grandparents set the wheels in motion. Since they were also very encouraging and supportive of my career vision, they thought moving to the U.S. could be helpful to me. Then, suddenly, the time came, and we set off. We landed and settled in New York, learned English and began to pursue the next phase of our lives. For me that meant applying to the Metropolitan Opera Fellowship by the Bank of America. I got one for 2022-23. Before Covid, I had been leaning toward directing opera, and this fellowship enabled me to begin working in the field. I never expected it, and long before I ever expected it, I became an assistant director,” says Cuizon.

Like Lucey, Michelle found herself strongly influenced by watching other women directing, among them, Metropolitan Opera Executive Director, Paula Suozzi. “There was a woman with so many roles, which I realized she couldn’t manage if she weren’t efficient and well-organized,” says Cuizon.

That’s it, she thought; only with focus could she achieve what she wanted. During her one year fellowship, Michelle worked on eight operas, including “The Hours” and “Champion,” after having surmounted the challenge of working on Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk,” in Russian!

“English is already my second language, and here I was facing the challenge of assisting on an opera, that was totally foreign to me. What a challenge,” says Cuizon. Now, she is studying Italian, and says, “really a must for opera directors. This time it is much easier.”

Michelle is proud of her time learning from other talented directors and singers, like Patricia Racette on “Susannah,” J’nai Bridges, and Aileen Perez, Last season she assisted Shawna Lucey on the Broadway World awarded production of “Romeo & Juliet.” She also assisted Stephen Lawless on “Barber of Seville,” Dan Wallace Miller on “Rigoletto,” and on the Bay Area premiere of “Florencia en el Amazonas,” assisting Crystal Manich, and at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and worked on “Julius Caesar” directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. In addition to being Opera San José’s Resident Stage Director this season, Michelle will assistant direct at the Metropolitan Opera this coming winter to assistant direct “The Magic Flute – A Holiday Presentation” and “Tosca“ with Sondra Radvanosky in the title role.

“I have learned so much from Shawna Lucey of course. It is clear when she sees something she wants she makes up her mind to do it. I benefit so much from her example,” says Cuizon. From both women, what we get is how much they are learning from each other. Rather than the stereotypical competitive stance between women, vying as they had to the scant array of positions available to them, they have returned to the age-old one in which women band together and urge each other forward, contributing to the sense of belonging.

“It is Shawna who inspired me from the start and has encouraged me to put forth my vision, Shawna, the young mother of a nearly four year old, who gives so much. If I can give… then I will be living out the dream which I have been living since I myself was mentored by some of the most remarkable people, who see me as I am. I have faced opposition as a woman, let alone moving to U.S., speaking a different language, taking charge as of a whole production and finding new skills and seeing myself altogether differently,” says Cuizon.

Both of these young women have devoted themselves to their craft, despite their personal challenges of being a woman in a field largely dominated by men and the male point of view.

“In my production of the female heroine in ‘La Boheme,’ in which OSJ Music Director Joseph Marcheso will conduct, and opening on November 16th, I am trying to show strength of women, and women’s friendship, for instance in Musetta and Mimi. It is so important to see a complete woman rather than simply a victim for whom we pity only,” says Cuizon.

“Also, she aims to show a sense of belonging in this coming of age story. To show the relationships of the chars who are complex, asking questions like, where have I come from, and where do I belong. It is refreshing and invigorating to hear the wish to strengthen women’s capacities in an opera like ‘La Boheme,’ so beloved and endearing. To begin to see women as capable even as they suffer is definitely a good thing,” says Cuizon.

“What about your musical dreams?” I asked.

“To belong, to a community, to a place, to people,” says Cuizon.

She wants her culture to be acceptable outside of the Philippines. She also wants to establish opera in the Philippines and to raise interest so she can establish funding. To show it is necessary.

Let’s keep our eye on Opera San José among other houses in the opera world, and the women who offer their vision and their stunning ability to translate it into action.