Elkhanah Pulitzer’s bold, nuanced stage direction explores the intersection of music and theater through innovation and hybridized forms, creating compelling and visually stunning productions, from newly composed works to operas and oratorios stretching back to the Baroque era. The director has forged a deep working relationship with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams, most recently directing his Antony and Cleopatra, which combined the mythic image of antiquity with the glamor of 1930s Hollywood. The production premiered at San Francisco Opera in September 2022, had its European premiere at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2023 – where Scherzo observed that “what truly interests Adams and Pulitzer is highlighting the multiple facets of the love-hate relationship between two mature lovers … imprisoned by their desires, ambitions, obligations, and fears” – and served as Pulitzer’s Metropolitan Opera debut in spring of 2025. Pulitzer also has an ongoing collaboration with cellist Alisa Weilerstein as the director of her FRAGMENTS, a groundbreaking, multisensory performance series for solo cello that aims to “rethink how artists connect with their audiences” (The New York Times) and weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works. Following performances of the second and third parts of the series at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in early 2025, the first performance of the six-part project in its entirety took place at Spoleto USA.
Elkanah Pulitzer’s production flips back and forth between Alexandria and Rome with action-movie ease.
During the 2025–26 season, Pulitzer looks forward to directing Alban Berg’s Wozzeck at Berkeley’s West Edge Opera – following up on her “superbly realized” (San Francisco Classical Voice) staging of the same composer’s Lulu there in 2015 – and the world premiere, in November 2025, of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hildegard at LA Opera with Beth Morrison Projects. She will also serve as Artistic Consultant for a project that sees students from Interlochen Center for the Arts partner on tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony to foreground a youth perspective on America250. Collaborators on the project include composers Reena Esmail and Wynton Marsalis, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua McClendon, and conductor Cristian Măcelaru.
Elkhanah Pulitzer’s superb direction, supported by the stunning projections and simple yet elegant staging and scenic design, transformed the stage into a heavenly realm of spiritual wonder.
Highlights of the director’s past projects include high-profile orchestral collaborations: John Adams’s Nixon in China and The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony respectively; and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and at the Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. She has also mounted recent productions of Lucia di Lammermoor and Judas Maccabaeus at Los Angeles Opera; Handel’s Julius Caesar at Opera Theatre of St. Louis; five European productions of David Lang’s prisoner of the state, including at London’s Barbican and Rotterdam’s De Doelen, following the work’s premiere at the New York Philharmonic; a live tour of Esperanza Spalding’s album 12 Little Spells; and DIORAMA, an art installation at the I.O.U. in San Francisco.
Earlier in her career, Pulitzer directed Wagner’s Flying Dutchman at San Francisco Opera in 2013 and returned from 2015-17 to serve as Artistic Curator – developing the mission, brand, and programming – of SF Opera Lab, a two-year experimental chamber opera program. She has directed multiple productions at West Edge Opera, among them Alban Berg’s Lulu, Thomas Ades’s Powder Her Face, and Luca Francesconi’s Quartett. She has collaborated on next-generation projects with Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Theater of Saint Louis, and the Canadian Opera Company. Non-musical directing credits include work with Impact Theater, Cutting Ball, Riverside Theater, and Ensemble Theater Company.
Pulitzer was honored with the Opera America Success Award for her libretto Dream of the Pacific, an opera composed by Stephen Mager, commissioned by a consortium and performed at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Washington National Opera, and others. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley in Theatre Arts and holds an MFA from Columbia in Directing. Born in Boston and raised in St. Louis and Marin, Pulitzer also serves as board vice president of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, which advances experimentation in art curation, installation and live programming.