Soprano Patricia Racette will become the artistic director of the Saint Louis Opera Theater, Fill a key management position of a company that has been associated from its debut there in 1993.
The general director Andrew Jorgesen said Tuesday that he will take charge on October 1 by James Robinson, who had been artistic director since 2009 and announced in June that he was becoming a general and artistic director of the Seattle opera. Racette has directed the programs of young artists of the St. Louis company since 2019.
“I already have such a rich relationship with the company and with Andrew, so it is taking it to the next level,” he said. “It is my job to be a leader in terms of programming, casting, creative.”
The company’s 2025 season has 25 staging performances of four works, including the world premiere on May 31 of “This House” by Ricky Ian Gordon, with a libretto of the twice winner of the Pulitzer Award Lynn Nottage and his daughter, Ruby Aiyo Gerber. The company projects its operational budget at $ 12.5 million to $ 13 million.
Racette, who turns 60 next month, made his director in St. Louis with “La Traviata” by Verdi in 2018 and then directed in “La Voix Humaine” by Poulenc in 2021 and “Susannah” by Carlisle Floyd in 2023.
“Having lived my life on stage and now as director, I’ve been on both sides of the curtain,” he said. “I think that puts me in a unique position to understand what is needed to put an opera.”
Racette will sing in “Dialogues des Carmélitas” of Polenc in the Opera de Dallas in November and directing his “Susannah” in the Omaha opera in January. He will work in St. Louis with an administration that includes the principal director Daniela Candillari and has already been involved in a future programming.
“As Master Teacher added, since he added Mentor, since she has become stage director, since she has assumed a more important role in the casting here,” said Jorgensen, “has demonstrated again and again that all those skills that made it such a spectacular interpreter, now understands how to bring all that, the use and coup for the wider benefit of the organization.”
