ABOUT
Kaley Karis Smith
BIOGRAPHY
Kaley Karis Smith is a 2023 winner of the Opera America Women Directors Grant. She has served as a stage director and assistant director with opera companies across the country, bringing her "assured and inventive" work to Houston Grand Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Michigan Opera Theater, Opera Delaware, Opera Omaha, Pittsburgh Opera, West Edge Opera, The Chautauqua Opera Company, and Virginia Opera. The 24/25 season brings another collaboration with HGO, a return to Pittsburgh Festival Opera to direct Adriana Lecouvrer, and a directorial debut with Baldwin Wallace Conservatory for Orpheus in the Underworld. In the 2023-24 season, Ms. Smith directed new productions of La traviata at Opera Delaware and Opera Baltimore as well as Rusalka at Opera Idaho, and she was the revival director of Madama Butterfly at Houston Grand Opera. Ms. Smith also spent the fall of 2023 as a Visiting Instructor of Opera at Oberlin Conservatory.
In the 2022-23 season, Ms. Smith returned to Houston Grand Opera to join their assistant directing staff for La traviata, El Milagro del Recuerdo, and Werther, and to direct La traviata at the Miller Outdoor Theater. She also directed new productions of La traviata for Opera Delaware and Rusalka at Opera Idaho. In May of 2022, she completed a two-year contract with Pittsburgh Opera as the Resident Artist Stage Director, where she directed Soldier Songs and The Rose Elf, and was the assistant stage director for several productions, including the world premiere of Chris Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann’s In A Grove, directed by Mary Birnbaum.
Other directing credits include: The Telephone with Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Make a Scene! with Opera Delaware, The Turn of the Screw and The Crucible with Chicago Summer Opera, As One Open Rehearsals Series and The Bremen Town Musicians at The Chautauqua Opera Company, Le Nozze di Figaro at Augusta University, and Petunia and Jack and the Beanstalk with FBN Productions, Inc. Ms. Smith has completed Foundations of Intimacy Levels 1-2 through Intimacy Directors and Coordinators (IDC Professionals).
GRANT WINNER
Opera America
OPERA AMERICA WOMEN DIRECTORS GRANT 2023
MYSTERY AND
SUSPENSE.
Evocative... an air of
"For Pittsburgh Opera, director Kaley Karis Smith and set designer Samantha Pollack have created a garden of delight with large white blossoms suspended from the ceiling and cascades of flowers framing the action. Evocative lighting creates an air of mystery and suspense as rapture evolves into tragedy. ... Smith introduced a human embodiment of the Rose, enacted by dancer Grace Lopez. Although she never made a sound, Lopez communicated the ecstasy and horror of the doomed lovers through her face and body."