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The Instruction

Our continued thanks, congratulations and applause to our Staff of the Wagner Theater Program:

Founder and Director Patricia Sage continues a distinguished career as both singer and pianist. Ms. Sage has spent many years in the European Theaters beginning with the Bayreutherfestspiel Meisterklassen founded by Friedelind Wagner, which has served as a model for the Wagner Theater Program at Mannes. Ms. Sage now devotes the majority of her time and energies to seeking out, teaching, and developing dramatic talent in the footsteps of her mentor, Friedelind Wagner.

Vocal Director Barbara Conrad is a brilliant mezzo soprano of many performing years at the Metropolitan Opera and theaters around the world. The core of the Wagner Theater Program is the body and breath techniques developed by Barbara Conrad. Ms. Conrad works with many current philosophies such as Laban-Bartenieff principles of movement and three-dimensional core support, adapting and developing vocal techniques of breath flow particularly crucial to dramatic repertoire. The litany of "big and beautiful" is joined by "buoyance," thanks to the vibratory flow of breath sought by singers in all repertoire, but especially important in the dramatic works of Richard Wagner. Ms. Conrad's CD releases include the opera Hamlet with Joan Sutherland, with Barbara Conrad as Queen Gertrude, conducted by Richard Bonynge, and Porgy and Bess conducted by Lorin Maazel. Ms. Conrad has also released a glorious award-winning CD entitled Spirituals.

Conductor David Gilbert was trained in the Wagnerian repertoire as assistant to Pierre Boulez in the groundbreaking Centenary RING Cycle directed by Patrice Chereau for the Bayreuth Festival. Maestro Gilbert is also acclaimed for his dynamic performances with orchestras throughout the United States, the Far East and Europe. Born to a family of musicians, he received Bachelor and Master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music and won first prize in the 1970 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition. Assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1970-1979, he was principal conductor of the American Ballet Theatre from 1971 to 1975. From 1980-82, at China's invitation, David Gilbert served as principal Guest Conductor of the Beijing Central Philharmonic. The first American musician to hold a position of prominence in China, Mr. Gilbert was instrumental in rebuilding that nation's major symphonic orchestra. Maestro Gilbert has many CD operatic releases, including Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring and Ned Rorem's Miss Julie, as well as CD releases of his own compositions. He is Music Director of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and director of the Conducting Department of the Manhattan School of Music. Maestro Gilbert has been the Conductor for the Wagner Theater Program since its inception eight years ago.

Stage Director Deborah Karner has directed traditional and new opera in Italy, Austria and the United States. Her productions of contemporary works have ranged from operatic premieres to performance-art opera and multi-media musical theater performances with Theatregruppe BRG Keppler (Graz, Austria). Traditional productions she has directed have spanned the styles from her own copyrighted version of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, through the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Deborah’s work in theater includes her role as instructor and facilitator for the nationally performing improvisational troupe Full Circle Theater, based in the Center for Intergenerational Learning at Temple University. In Philadelphia, where she is a member of the Creative Arts and Aging Network, she teaches acting and stage directs Senior Theater Productions in diverse communities. Ms. Karner is on the faculty of Temple University where she teaches “Graduate Opera Performance” and “Movement for Singers”. At the New School University, Mannes College of Music in New York, she has taught the classes “Character and Interpretation in Opera, Art Song and Oratorio” and “German Opera Repertoire”. Deborah Karner is the resident stage director for the Wagner Theater Program at Mannes where she teaches, coaches and directs the operas of Richard Wagner.

German Language Instructor Annegret Decker, well-known in the international community as the author of numerous textbooks such as Pronounce It Right, children's books, as well as for her German/English voiceovers and for her work as an actress and director.