Lotfi Mansouri

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Lotfi Mansouri (born Lotfollah Mansouri on 15 June 1929 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian opera director and manager. He was an opera director from about 1960 onwards, and is most well-known for being the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company and of the San Francisco Opera from 1988 through 2001. In 1992 he became a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (a French civilian honor), and the subject of a 1998 biography ^[1].

1 Early Years
2 Canadian Opera Company
3 San Francisco Opera
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Early Years

Mansouri began his directorial career with a production of Cosi fan tutte at Los Angeles City College, and several musical theater productions at Marymount College. From 1960 to 1966, he worked as a resident stage director at the Zurich Opera. In his first year there, he staged new productions of Amahl and the Night Visitors, La traviata, Don Pasquale, and Samson et Dalila. From 1966 through 1976 he worked as the head stage director at the Geneva Opera. Throughout this period, he occasionally worked at numerous U.S. opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and many smaller companies.

[edit] Canadian Opera Company

From 1971 through 1988 Mansouri worked as the general director of the Canadian Opera in Toronto. Mansouri introduced supertitles for the January 1983 staging of Elektra, and this is generally regarded as the first use of such a translation system.

[edit] San Francisco Opera

In 1988, Mansouri become the fourth general director of the San Francisco Opera, replacing Terence McEwen.

Mansouri lead the company in commissioning several new works which have received critical acclaim, including John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer (1992), Conrad Susa's Dangerous Liaisons (Fall 1994), Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk (1996) (co-commissioned with Houston Grand Opera and New York City Opera), André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire (Fall 1998), and Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking (Fall 2000). This move has helped build the house's reputation as one of the leading innovators in the United States, a reputation which is still held today.

Towards the end of the 2001 season, Mansouri announced his resignation. He was replaced by Pamela Rosenberg, formerly of the Stuttgart Opera, in the 2001-2002 season.

[edit] External links

Lotfi Mansouri's official website
Lotfi Mansouri at the Internet Movie Database
Joshua Kosman, "Two views of Mansouri's S.F. era: opera director was gambling man", San Francisco Chronicle, 5 August 2001 Mansouri's tenure at the SF Opera.

[edit] References

^ Joan Chatfield-Taylor, An Operatic Odyssey: Lotfi Mansouri and San Francisco Opera

Chatfield-Taylor, Joan, An Operatic Odyssey: Lotfi Mansouri and San Francisco Opera, San Francisco, California: Performing Arts Network, 1998.
Chatfield-Taylor, Joan, San Francisco Opera: The First Seventy-Five Years, San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books, 1997. ISBN 0-8118-1368-1