Matthew Ozawa

A multidisciplinary stage director, artistic director, and educator, Matthew Ozawa became Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Chief Artistic Administration officer, a new position, in 2022. In the 2024/25 Season at Lyric, he will direct his own production of Fidelio, originally commissioned by San Francisco Opera, where he has also directed Orfeo and Barber of Seville: Drive-In Opera. He has directed five other works at Lyric since 2015/16, including The Three Queens (2019/20), An American Dream (2018/19), Don Quichotte (2016/17), and Nabucco (2015/16). Recent directorial highlights include an innovative new production of Madame Butterfly, which premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2023. The opera, with a largely Asian and Asian-American creative team, subsequently received critical acclaim at Detroit Opera and will appear at Pittsburgh Opera and Utah Opera in 2025. Committed to new and modern work, his recent production highlights include Ruo’s Angel Island (Brooklyn Academy of Music / Beth Morrison Projects) and Ruo/Hwang’s An American Soldier (Opera Theatre of St. Louis). Ozawa’s productions have also been seen at Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Wolftrap Opera, Opera Colorado, San Diego Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Arizona Opera, Kentucky Opera, North Carolina Opera, Opera Siam, Asia Society, Carnegie Hall, and The Kennedy Center, among many others. Ozawa previously served as Interim Director of the Lyric Unlimited, Learning and Civic Engagement division at Lyric, and spent three years as an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He was the Founder and Artistic Director of Mozawa, a Chicago-based incubator advancing collaborative art and artists. Raised in California and Singapore, Ozawa is a graduate of United World College of South East Asia and Oberlin Conservatory.