Thursday (9/13) on her Washington Post blog Classical Beat, Anne Midgette reports, “In a long-awaited step, the [Washington National Opera] announced Thursday that Francesca Zambello, who has been serving since June of last year as artistic adviser, will assume the title of artistic director on January 1. She will work together with Michael Mael, WNO’s executive director. Both will report to the Kennedy Center’s president, Michael M. Kaiser. Zambello will retain her position as artistic and general director of the Glimmerglass Festival in Upstate New York, which she took over last year. She will also continue to direct productions around the world, although, she says, ‘I will be scaling back on some of my work’ to spend more time in Washington. This move was something of a foregone conclusion since Zambello became WNO’s artistic adviser, a position she took very seriously and in which she had already helped implement several new additions to the season. … She has already articulated, and started to realize, many of her goals for the company in her capacity as artistic adviser: more new work, more American singers, expansion into different Kennedy Center theaters, and, she hopes, more productions per year.”
Posted September 14, 2012
