a b o u t l e i g h
Holman has performed or directed with Portland Opera, Nashville Opera, National Opera, Wildwood Opera, Central City Opera, Eastman School of Music, Stony Brook University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Colorado.
Equally suited to new and rare works as she is to traditional compositions for the stage, she has produced and directed workshops of operas in association with composers and librettists such as Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, Mark Adamo, Mark Campbell, Libby Larsen, Herschel Garfein, Lori Laitman, Robert Aldridge, Daniel Kellogg, Colm Toibin, Dave Mason and Kirke Mechem. As the founder of CU NOW, University of Colorado Boulder’s New Opera Workshop, she continues to passionately promote the creation, collaboration and production of new American works.
Director Leigh Holman has found success balancing her professional stage directing and academic career in the United States and abroad.
Upcoming: Falstaff at the University of Colorado, October 27 and 29. Macky Auditorium www.cupresents.org
Recently Holman directed at the Pafos Aphrodite Festival in Pafos, Cyprus where she received heralded reviews for her direction of Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus Serail. She has made debuts at the Piccolo Festival Friuli Venezia Giulia (Rossini’s, La cambiale di matrimonio) in Northern Italy, Florida Grand Opera, Opéra de Montréal (Nabucco), and Opera Futura in Verona, Italy. She served as assistant director for Thaddeus Strassberger at Opera Philadelphia in his brilliant Risorgimento “show within a show” production of Nabucco, Ron Daniels (Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in London) in his critically acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly with Michael Fabiano at Opera Colorado and with James Robinson in the 2007 Opera Colorado production of La Traviata starring Pamela Armstrong. She has also worked with Opera Philadelphia, Opera Futura, and Teatro Nuova. With conductor, Michael Christie, she directed a production of Krása’a Brundibár with the Colorado Music Festival.
After serving as Director of Education and Outreach at Opera Colorado, Dr. Holman joined the faculty of University of Colorado Boulder in 2009. She has mounted several highly successful and award-winning seasons. Holman currently resides in Boulder, CO. Her mother, Berlynne Holman, also a stage director, is and has always been her primary musical and theatrical influence.