Opera Parallele Represented In 14 Cities This Season

Opera Parallèle, San Francisco's contemporary opera company now in its 16th anniversary season, is on the move—stretching its wings across North America and beyond. Under the visionary leadership of Founder/Artistic Director and Conductor Nicole Paiement and innovative Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, the company's influence continues to ripple far beyond its home base in San Francisco this year with guest conducting engagements, guest directing positions, requests for rental productions, and co-commissioning projects in 14 cities.

The company's 2025–26 Bay Area season is soon to launch with Hello, Star, a World Premiere Hands-on-Opera by Carla Lucero and Jarrod Lee October 25–26 at San Francisco's Creativity Theater at the Children's Creativity Museum, Yerba Buena Gardens; an encore presentation of the company's widely acclaimed multi-media production of La Belle et la Bête by Philip Glass, and based on a film by Jean Cocteau, set for March 13–14 at Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley; and the West Coast premiere of Doubt by Douglas J. Cuomo and John Patrick Shanley, featuring a new chamber orchestration by the composer and a newly created abridged libretto by Kevin Newbury, May 29–31 at the Presidio Theatre.

“Opera Parallèle was founded on collaboration and reinvention,” said Paiement. “Seeing our work travel, evolve, and resonate with new audiences across the world is deeply gratifying—and a testament to the extraordinary creative partnerships we have built.”

Paiement, internationally celebrated for her incisive musicianship and championing of modern opera, is embarking on another whirlwind season that underscores her growing global profile. Following a full schedule of Opera Parallèle projects in the Bay Area, Paiement travels to her home city of Montréal in November to conduct Janáček's Jenůfa for L'Opéra de Montréal, marking her third engagement with one of Canada's leading opera companies.

In January 2026, Paiement makes her Romanian debut leading the Filarmonica de Stat Transilvania in a program of Debussy, Grieg and Smetana, followed by her first engagement with Pacific Opera Victoria, British Columbia in April for a new production of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. She then heads to the islands for her Hawai'i Opera Theatre premier, conducting Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell's gripping contemporary opera The Shining, an Opera Parallèle co-production restaged by Staufenbiel.

Recently, Paiement was on the podium at Glimmerglass Opera leading the successful world premiere of Derek Bermel's The House on Mango Street and made an important orchestral debut with Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival. The French-Canadian conductor's recent credits include engagements with London's English National Opera, the BBC Symphony at the Barbican Center, a debut at Vienna's Volksoper, symphony concerts in Italy with Palermo's Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, and several seasons at The Dallas Opera as Principal Guest Conductor.

Simultaneously, Opera Parallèle's innovative productions—praised for their cinematic design, striking visuals, and emotional resonance—are finding vibrant new life nationwide. Under the direction of highly regarded creative director, Staufenbiel, OP's acclaimed stagings of The Shining, Fellow Travelers, and Everest: An Immersive Experience are being reprised at major regional companies including Utah Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Tampa, Hawai'i Opera Theatre, and last season at Atlanta Opera.

Future Opera Parallèle productions of the recent Hands-on-Opera, The Pigeon Keeper, are set to premiere with co-producers Opera Omaha and Opera on the Avalon Newfoundland, while the upcoming Hello, Star will see a new production by co-commissioners at the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 

Staubenbiel's numerous directing credits include productions with L'Opéra de Montréal, Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, Arizona Opera and LA Opera, and directed the critically praised 2023 documentary film Flicka, a profile on mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade.