Yuval Sharon has amassed an unconventional body of work that expands the operatic form. He is founder and Artistic Director of The Industry in Los Angeles and the newly appointed Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director of Michigan Opera Theatre. With The Industry, Mr. Sharon has directed and produced new operas in moving vehicles, operating train stations, Hollywood sound stages, and various “non-spaces” such as warehouses, parking lots, and escalator corridors. From 2016-2019, Mr. Sharon was the first Artist-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, creating nine projects that included newly commissioned works, site-specific installations, and performances outside the hall. His residency culminated in a major revival of Meredith Monk’s opera ATLAS, making him the first director Monk entrusted with a new production of her work. The first American ever invited to direct at Bayreuth, Mr. Sharon distinguished himself with a boldly progressive Lohengrin in 2018, using subtle dramatic direction to completely overhaul the opera into a critique of entrenched power structures. He is the recipient of the 2014 Götz Friedrich Prize in Germany for his production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic. He also directed a landmark production of Song Books at the San Francisco Symphony and Carnegie Hall. In 2017, Sharon was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant for theater. Photo credit: Casey Kringlen

Soprano Christine Goerke has appeared in many of the most prestigious opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Real in Madrid, and the Saito Kinen Festival. She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire, beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now moving into dramatic R. Strauss and Wagner roles. She has also appeared with many leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Radio Vara, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and both the Hallè Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival. Christine's recording of Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance. Her close association with Robert Shaw yielded several recordings, which include of Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and the GRAMMY-nominated recording of Dvořák's Stabat Mater. Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten’s War Requiem, which won the 1999 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance. Christine is the Associate Artistic Director of Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre). She was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award, the 2015 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award, and the 2017 Opera News Award.

Jon Teeuwissen, Detroit Opera’s Artistic Advisor for Dance, oversees the dance strategy at Detroit Opera, including programming the company's dance season, community engagement initiatives, and increasing or strengthening collaborative relationships within the industry. Jon has more than 40 years in dance and non-profit management, including working as a producer, presenter, and agent for dance. He has led some of the country’s most renowned dance companies, including working under two founding artistic directors: Arthur Mitchell at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Gerald Aprino at the Joffrey Ballet, both of whom he considers mentors. His past roles include serving as executive director of the Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and the New Orleans Ballet Association. He was also general manager of American Ballet Theatre and company manager of Dance Theatre of Harlem, both companies with long-term relationships with Detroit Opera.

Detroit Opera welcomed Patty Isacson Sabee as President and CEO on January 2, 2024. Isacson Sabee is a transformative, collaborative leader with more than 35 years of experience driving excellence at U.S. arts institutions. She is only the third person to lead Detroit Opera since its founding (as Michigan Opera Theatre) in 1971 by the late David DiChiera, and follows Wayne S. Brown, who led the company from 2014 to 2023. Immediately prior to joining the Detroit Opera, Isacson Sabee was Executive Director of Planet Word, an immersive language experience in Washington, D.C. that opened in October 2020 and celebrates the fun, beauty, and power of words, language, and reading. At Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), founded in 2000 as the Experience Music Project, she served as Director of External Relations and Development before being named CEO and Director. She oversaw MoPOP’s national programming and $213 million in assets and was responsible for bringing in more than 600,000 annual visitors. At the Seattle Symphony over the course of two decades, she held positions in operations, artistic administration, and development before serving as Interim Executive Director. Her accomplishments at Seattle Symphony include directing the start-up operations of Benaroya Hall, a $118 million dedicated symphonic concert hall that opened in September 1998. Isacson Sabee joins Detroit Opera as it builds on David DiChiera’s vision for the company as a center for high-quality, accessible opera and dance in the heart of Detroit. Under the artistic direction of Yuval Sharon, recent opera highlights include 2020’s Twilight: Gods, a drive-through experience of Richard Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung, a new staging of Ragnar Kjartansson’s performance piece BLISS at the Michigan Building Theatre in 2021, the 2022 world premiere of a new co-production of Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and Sharon’s 2022 La bohème staging, which presented the four acts of Puccini’s classic opera in reverse order. Isacson Sabee’s love of music has taken her from the orchestra pit as a freelance violist in New York to the board room. She is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa. Photo credit: Yassine El Mansouri