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Stage Director and Acting coach

 

Mr. Verzatt is currently on faculty at Long Island City Academy of Music and was Director of the Opera Acting Workshop, Lecturer in Voice and Opera, and Head of the Acting and Movement Workshops at Yale University from 2002-2016. Mr. Verzatt directs opera, operetta, and musical theater throughout the United States, South America, and Europe. He began his theatrical career as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera after studying drama at Rutgers University and ballet with New Jersey’s Garden State Ballet. After several seasons as a soloist with the MET Ballet, he left to continue his education in production as a stage manager with the Cincinnati Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

 

Mr. Verzatt made his professional directing debut with a production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Opera Columbus. He has since directed opera for the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and companies throughout the USA.

 

In 2005 he returned to the Metropolitan Opera stage for the role of the Major-Domo in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. In demand as an acting and movement teacher, in 2015 he was acting coach and stage director for the Napa Valley Music Festival. In 2016 after productions of "Aida" and "Elektra" in New York City,  he returned as teacher and stage director to Sweden's Hänsoförd Voice Academy and to Dresden, Germany as acting coach and movement director for the Orfeo Vocal Academy.

 

Upcoming in 2017: "La Traviata" in Albany, NY; in April, New York Baroque's presentation of Aliotti's "Santa Rosalia" at Trinity Wall Street in May; Madison Lyric Stage "Otello" in June.

 

In 2006 he was named Outstanding Stage Director of the Year by Classical Singer Magazine and since 2015 has won numerous first prizes as a competitive ballroom dancer.