Rod Gomez most recently returned as guest stage director at Hofstra University’s Department of Drama and Dance, staging an adaptation of Shakepeare’s Romeo and Juliet, after successful productions there of The House of Bernarda Alba (Garcia Lorca), Summer and Smoke (Williams), and Barefoot in the Park (Simon). He was awarded Best Director 2019 by the Latin ACE Awards for New Camerata Opera’s production of the zarzuela el barbero de Sevilla. He served as the Director of the Opera Studio at the Aaron Copland School of Music @ Queens College where his production of The Rape of Lucretia was awarded 3rd Place (Division IV) at the National Opera Association’s Production Competition, and Resident Stage Director for Opera Roanoke (VA), staging Die Zauberflöte, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, and Carmen.

 

He has served as faculty or associate faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Opera Academy of California, Holy Names College and Summer Music West International, directing opera, operetta and musical theater. For ten years he had been on the faculty of Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI) where his directing credits included: The Turn of the Screw, La Clemenza di Tito, Dido and Aeneas, as well as Suor Angelica (“This was a production that mined every detail of the scenario’s psychological complexity with harrowing results. Gomez’s achievement was all the more notable in the context of [San Francisco Opera’s highly effective staging the preceding fall]... A ‘must see’ event of the summer”(Stephen Smoliar, San Francisco Examiner). Additional credits include Chicago Summer Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as well as Bard College as Stage Director of Opera Workshop, where he was guest stage director for two years.

He has served as Stage Director and Stage Director mentor with New York’s dell’Arta Opera Ensemble (“Rare Humperdinck opera a Treat!” ABC News), Artistic Advisor and Resident Stage Director for New York’s One World Symphony (directing numerous productions for the company including: Le Nozze di Figaro, Orfeo ed Euridice, and Peter Grimes, among others). Other New York-area productions include: Bronx Opera’s The Consul, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, La Traviata, Albert Herring, and Cinderella; Chelsea Opera’s I Pagliacci (“Endearingly homey,” New York Times), Pocket OperaNY’s Così fan Tutte (Time Out NY’s Critics’ Pick), Fairy Queen for Big Apple Baroque, Giulio Cesare with the Opera Company of Brooklyn, West Side Story with New Jersey Concert Opera and the American premiere of British composer Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles at New York’s Winter Garden. In addition, he has directed productions with San Francisco’s Pocket Opera (Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto, Martha) and at California State University, Northridge. He holds a B.M. from California State University, Northridge and an M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.