Image: The department would like to congratulate Daniel Ellis, joint faculty member with Hugh Hodgson School of Music, on his lauded production of Gaetano Donizetti’s 1832 opera The Elixir of Love for the Minnesota Opera. In 2021, Ellis and his creative team for The Elixir of Love were awarded the prestigious Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize, which recognizes promising stage directors and designers for their ingenuity in bringing operatic works to life for contemporary audiences. Ellis’s production transposed the narrative of the 1832 opera from Spain to 1916 California, recontextualizing the eponymous elixir as a part of an advertising campaign to sell oranges. Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine’s spotlight of the production elaborates on the reinvention in some detail while also providing insight from Daniel Ellis himself. Daniel Ellis is slated to direct UGA Theatre’s upcoming production of Little Shop of Horrors and we’re abundantly excited to share his unique vision with UGA’s students and the larger Athens-Clarke County community!
