A 12-year-old girl sits in her seat, spellbound by a production of The Phantom of the Opera. It’s her first time attending a musical, and what she experiences in the theater that night reveals a passion. She quietly tells herself, “I must do theater when I grow up.”
Throughout middle school and high school, her parents dutifully watch their daughter tackle one part after another in various school productions. When she turns 16, she attends her first opera, La Boheme, and makes a slight deviation in her career aspirations as she becomes “entranced with the fusion of drama with music” in opera.
Just 10 years later, Crystal Manich (A’04, HNZ’05) would direct that same opera as part of the Pittsburgh Opera’s 2009 season. And last year, she made her international debut directing a Buenos Aires production of Madame Butterfly, which received glowing reviews:
The American director Crystal Manich debuted here with this staging, and she couldn’t have done it any better… Profound understanding of the work and conceptual clarity.
—MundoClasico.com
Manich still can’t believe she is directing operas well before her 30th birthday. “It’s like playtime for adults. You can create this imaginary world that comes to life. I love that about my job.”
The director has also worked with Cirque du Soleil and opera greats such as Plácido Domingo. She will return to Pittsburgh in January to direct Handel’s Rinaldo. After that, she says she expects to direct another production in Argentina and has several other jobs lined up as well.
—Lisa Kay Davis (HS’09)
