Antigoni Gaitana is a Greek dramaturg, librettist and stage director dedicated to storytelling and connecting with today’s audiences. Through the written word, scholarship, creative collaboration, translating and lecturing, she communicates her passion for breathing new life into standard repertoire and encouraging contemporary operatic creation.

As a dramaturg she functions as a consultant regarding the dramatic qualities of a new piece, researches, translates, and designs supertitles. She has collaborated with a wide variety of prestigious musical institutions (New York University, The Mannes Opera, Manhattan School of Music, National Sawdust), festivals (Opera Saratoga, Prototype, Time’s Arrow), and opera companies (Cantanti Project, Dell’arte Opera, Regina Opera) in New York and in her native Greece. From January 2018 until the emergence of the pandemic, she was working as Titles Administrator at The Metropolitan Opera. In May 2018, she served as Production Assistant for the Metropolitan Opera Commissioning Program Workshop for the opera Intimate Apparel by Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage, and as a selected panelist for the Frontiers Competition of the Fort Worth Opera in Texas.

Her most recent collaborations as a dramaturg include the works Torture Testimonies with composer Maria Deli (Duo Vocialo-G.N.O. Alternative Stage, 2022), Chhlong Tonle with composer Liliya Ugay and librettist Sokunthary Svay (Florida State University, 2022), and the choral work Τί κε θείμεν; with composer Niki Harlafti (Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart - IYCA Ticino, 2023).

As a director she expresses her vision conceiving not only the stage action but also the sets and costumes for every production. In 2016, Antigoni made her NY debut with the Cantanti Project’s production of Handel’s “Alcina.” In 2017, she co-founded the Colla Voce Workshop for young lyric singers and pianists along with the collaborative pianist and vocal coach Christos Marinos. Antigoni has served as director and dramaturg for the Greek premiere of Vaughan Williams’s “Riders to the Sea” and the opéra bouffe “L'île de Tulipatan” by Jacques Offenbach which Colla Voce Workshop presented at the 33rd and 34th Horto Summer Festival in Greece.

She is active both as a creative writer and as a contributor to art magazines (Hartis, The Theater Times, Krystallini Faretra). Her poems have been set to music by Anna Mouzaki (Hani Nur, Carnegie Hall Lullaby Project and El Sistema Greece, SNFCC 2018), Dimitri Terzakis (Two Lullaments for Syria, 2020), Panagiotis Theodossiou (Supplication and Response, 2020), and Juliana Hall (Look Twice, 2023).
 
She is currently working on the libretto of the new full-length opera In Limbo by composer Liliya Ugay, scheduled to be partially performed in Florida in Autumn 2023. In 2023 her works Against the Sun and Sky's Blue (music: Nickitas Demos) will premiere in Georgia, U.S.A. and Status pending (music: Liliya Ugay) in California. She is the dramaturg and stage director of Duo Vocialo, a piano-voice duo dedicated to performing 20th and 21st century Art Song, aiming to reshape the traditional recital form into an immersive experience.

C.V.