Sara Erde

Sara Erde is a director and choreographer for opera, theater, and film. She is a frequent collaborator with The Metropolitan Opera and a longtime member of their directing staff. At the Met, she has staged a multitude of operas including Così fan tutte, Madama Butterfly, Le Nozze di Figaro, Boris Godunov, Rigoletto, Porgy and Bess, Peter Grimes, and Falstaff both as a revival stage director and assistant director. 

 

As a choreographer at the Met, Erde’s work includes Ivo van Hove’s Don Giovanni, Sir David McVicar’s Fedora, Simon Stone’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Sir Richard Eyre’s productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Manon Lescaut, and Werther. She assisted choreographer Christopher Wheeldon to create the dances for Eyre’s Carmen, and created flamenco choreography for Diana Damrau in Bartlett Sher’s Il barbiere di Siviglia.

 

Other notable credits in opera include movement director for Sir Nicholas Hytner’s Don Carlo (The Metropolitan Opera), choreographer for Sir Richard Eyre’s Manon Lescaut (Baden-Baden), choreographer for Jonathon Loy’s Madama Butterfly and Ariadne auf Naxos (Berkshire Opera Festival), choreographer for E. Loren Meeker’s Carmen, John Pascoe’s Don Giovanni, and Marta Domingo’s La Traviata (Washington National Opera), assistant director and choreographer for John Pascoe’s Ercole su'l Termodonte (Italy's Festival dei Due Mondi), Turandot (Opéra de Québec), Flora, an Opera (Spoleto Festival USA), and Don Giovanni (Florida Grand Opera), choreographer for David Kneuss’s Carmen (Seiji Ozawa Music Academy), associate director and choreographer for Tomer Zvulun’s Roméo et Juliette and Madama Butterfly (Atlanta Opera), associate director for Francesca Zambello’s La Forza del Destino (Washington National Opera), assistant director for Laurent Pelly and Laurie Feldman’s Le Nozze di Figaro (Santa Fe Opera and Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival), and director for Maria de Buenos Aires (Alamo City Opera), and Outcast at the Gate (Center for Contemporary Opera). Erde was a first prize winner in Opera America’s Director-Designer Showcase.

 

Born in New York City, Erde trained in theater at LaGuardia High School and The British American Drama Academy at Oxford University. She studied dance at Ballet Hispanico of New York under the tutelage of Tina Ramirez, and in Seville, Spain with Juana Amaya and El Torombo. Her music studies were at Mannes School of Music in both voice and piano. In Seville, Erde founded and directed the flamenco/theater company Abolengo produced by Dodger Stage Holding which toured both in Spain and North America. In addition to directing and choreographing, Erde has worked extensively as an actor in theater and television, most notably at New York’s Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Classic Stage Company. As a dancer, she was a soloist at The Metropolitan Opera in productions of Carmen and La Traviata among many others, and in the companies of Flamenco Vivo, and María Benítez Teatro Flamenco.

 

Upcoming directing credits at The Metropolitan Opera include assistant and revival stage director for Carrie Cracknell’s Carmen, and assistant director for Franco Zeffirelli’s La Bohème, and Mary Zimmerman’s Florencia en el Amazonas. At Berkshire Opera Festival, Erde will choreograph Jonathon Loy’s production of Faust.