Thor Steingraber

Thor Steingraber Thor Steingraber is an American opera and theater director, and arts leader/manager.

Steingraber has held two leadership positions at American performing arts centers: Kimmel Center in Philadelphia where he was Senior Vice President, and The Music Center in Los Angeles where he was Vice President of Programming. While in Philadelphia, Kimmel Center and The Philadelphia Orchestra underwent a period of protracted negotiations during the Orchestra’s bankruptcy proceedings. Steingraber was instrumental in leading the Kimmel Center’s response during this transitional period. In Los Angeles, Steingraber oversaw the opening of Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles, an extension of the public/private partnership between The Music Center and Los Angeles County.

He will hold a third position, as Executive Director of the Valley Performing Arts Center, located on the campus of California State University, Northridge, beginning March 1, 2014.

Steingraber has been directing operas for fifteen years, and his work has been seen in cities across America, from New York's Lincoln Center to the San Francisco Opera. He has also directed in Asia (the Hong Kong Arts Festival) and made his European debut in 2010 in Barcelona. He has directed 400 years of operatic repertoire in five languages, but is particularly known for his renderings of Mozart's operas (Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Austin, Memphis, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, New York, and Pittsburgh).

Steingraber's multi-disciplinary collaborations range from young painters at the Chicago arts magnet school to designers like Maurice Sendak and David Hockney. In recent years, Thor's work has turned to Wagner—in Los Angeles and San Francisco he directed Tristan und Isolde, and in Chicago, he was the Associate Director of Wagner's Ring Cycle, starring Plácido Domingo. He also works for Mr. Domingo at the Los Angeles Opera, the company that has been Steingraber's artistic home for fourteen years.

Since 2002, Steingraber was teaching singers in universities and conservatories, including the Curtis Institute, Yale University School of Music and California State University where he was Distinguished Guest Artist in 2008. Steingraber teaches acting and scene-work, with an emphasis on character development employing a broad range of analytic processes.

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