CRAIG FIELDS
Artistic Director
Artistic Director Craig Fields served as stage director and general and artistic directors at Opera Roanoke in Roanoke, Virginia between 1989 and 2005, where he has produced and directed some thrity operas since 1989. Earlier in his career, he performed as a leading international baritone in opera theatres around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Mannheim, Freiburg, Zürich, Geneva and Berlin, to name a few. His singing repertoire encompasses over thirty roles, including Don Giovanni, Germont, Count Almaviva, Amonasro, Escamillo, Papageno,
Dr. Malatesta, Eugen Onegin, Sweeney Todd and Rossini’s Barber of Seville, performed more than 125 times. He has sung with José Carreras, Margaret Price, Cesare Siepi, Simon Estes, Francisco Araiza, Matti Salminen, Wolgang Brendel and Hildegard Behrens. And he has sung under the direction of conductors Nello Santi, Helmuth Rilling, Adam Fisher, Donald Runnicles, Kurt Herbert Adler, Lawrence Leighton Smith and Ralf Weikert.
He studied acting and stage directing at Chapman University in southern California and, after receiving his Master of Fine Art’s degree in vocal performance from California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, he completed post-graduate studies at the International Opera Studio of Zürich, the San Francisco Opera Merola Program, Mannes College of Music and Dartmouth College. He has received grants from the National Opera Institute and, two separate awards from the Martha B. Rockefeller Fund for advanced opera studies, and he has studied with renowned Minnesota stage director, Wesley Balk.
Since returning to the States in 1987, he served as an associate professor of opera and vocal music at the Virginia Tech School of the Arts and he directed more than thirty-five professional opera productions around the United States. He has been a guest at Virginia Opera, Mobile Opera, North Star Opera in St. Paul, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, James Madison University and Indiana University’s School of Music.
His productions have received critical acclaim in the national press. Opera News said of his 1993 staging of The Barber of Seville that his "fresh perspective on Rossini's opera was like turning Peter Sellars loose on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather III, even shedding new light on relationships between characters." Critics have described his work as “innovative”, “sensitive”, “audacious”, “different”, “captivating”, “weirdly visionary” and “sumptuously beautiful.”
He now resides with his wife, Amanda, and sons, Chris and Robert, in Minneapolis where he recently directed Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris for North Star Opera. For Opera on the James, he recently staged La Tragedie de Carmen, Cosi fan tutte and his own adaptation of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.
Cecelia Schieve
Executive Director
Joined Opera on the James as its first Executive Director in January 2010. Ms. Schieve’s recent positions have included as Director of Young Artist and Education Program at Florida Grand Opera; Opera Education Consultant for the Miami-Dade School District, Assistant General Director of Anchorage Opera, Executive Director of Brown Bag Opera, Boston, and Director of Opera at Boston Conservatory. She has been Faculty/ Guest Faculty at New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, Kent State University and Georgia Southern University. An active stage director, she most recently directed The Marriage of Figaro at Ash Lawn Opera in July 2009.
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Lynne Weinmeister
Began working for Opera on the James in February, 2009. She serves as Office Administrator managing box office sales, the company’s computer network and a wide range of projects in support of development and production. She has a B. A. in Spanish from the University of Kentucky and a Master’s In Communications from Marshall University.
