Robert Israel (United States)

Set Designer

HGO Appearances: Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas (premiere – 1996, 2001), Akhnaten (1984).

About the Artist: Israel has designed sets and costumes for the Metropolitan, English National, Paris, Netherlands, Royal Danish, San Francisco, Vienna and Bayerische operas, as well as with the New National Theater of Tokyo; Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. He made his Seattle Opera debut with Wagner’s Walküre in 1985, followed by his 1986 Ring des Nibelungen. He returned for Verdi’s Aida and Macbeth, as well as Wagner’s Parsifal. Israel designed the sets and costumes for Philip Glass’s Satyagraha at Seattle Opera, and his costume drawings for Satyagraha are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Israel’s has created designs for London’s National Theatre and Chicago’s Millennium Park, and has served as a consultant on McCaw Hall and worked on projects with the Walker Art Center, the Foundation Maeght, and at MOMA. An elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Israel is also a professor in the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA.