He was born on 16/9/1949 in New York. He made his debut in the Tony Award winning rock musical Two Gentlemen of Verona during the New York Shakespeare Festival. In opera, he started off as an assistant to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in Houston, Paris and Salzburg. In 1982, he began a regular collaboration with the Long Beach Opera as producer and stage director, gaining international accalim for his groundbreaking stagings. There he directed the operas Death in Venice, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, Il turco in Italia, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Dreigroschenoper and the world premiere of Hopper’s Wife by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie. He has directed in many American opera houses, the Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera Zuid in the Netherlands, Theatre Basel, Opéra Comique in Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, New Israeli Opera, etc. He works closely together with the San Francisco Opera: Les contes d'Hoffmann, La cenerentola, The Ghost Sonata, Das verratene Meer. Together with his twin brother David, he has directed the operas Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro. For the GNO he directed the operas Il prigioniero and La vida breve (2006/07). // Last update of the biography: October 2023 - The list of productions below is continually updated.