Darya Zholnerova

Assistant Stage Director

Darya Zholnerova was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1988. In 2011 graduated from Saint Petersburg Conservatory as Musical Stage Director, presently completing Artist Diploma in Opera Stage Directing at CCM – University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  From 2015 to 2022 worked at Saint Petersburg Conservatory as a senior teacher in the Opera Workshop in directing and acting, worked throughout Russia as a stage director. In 2017, founded in Saint Petersburg an opera company called Unlikely Opera House and became a principal director. In 2021, founded an international festival White Nights in the Attic the purpose of which is to connect the opera and musical theater fields of the USA and Russia. Developing her own acting system based on the methods of Stanislavsky and Stella Adler, also is trained as a stage combat and fencing instructor. Author of several plays, screenplays and translations of operas into Russian.

Operas directed: Maritza, Kalman; Don Giovanni, Mozart; La Traviata, Verdi; Snow Maiden, Rimsky-Korsakov; L’elisir D’amore, Donizetti, Dido and Aeneas, Purcell, Fellow Travelers, Spears.

Finalist of several international opera competitions and participant of several international opera programs and festivals including La Fabricca (Italy), Macerata Festival (Italy), Prague Summer Nights (USA-Сzech Republic).