Mo Zhou

Originally from China, Mo Zhou is a stage director whose international career spans all artistic disciplines including opera, theater, musical theater, dance, and film.

Equally passionate about invigorating the classical canon and spearheading new works, Zhou’s productions have been seen at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, National Centre for the Performing Arts in China, Santa Fe Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, The Juilliard School, and WP Theatre. She has also worked as a member of the directing staff at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, the Dallas Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera.

Zhou makes her debut with Minnesota Opera in the 2022-23 season with a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo. She also directs Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi alongside Michael Ching’s sequel, Buoso’s Ghost for Florida Grand Opera, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride with Boston Baroque, La bohème at Music
Academy, and Don Giovanni at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, where she joined the faculty in the fall of 2022. For the 2023-24 season she will stage the world premiere of The Big Swim from composer Meilina Tsui and librettist Melisa Tien for Houston Grand Opera.

Ms. Zhou completed her training as the James Marcus Opera Directing Fellow at The Juilliard School, the Directing Fellow at Wolf Trap Opera, Artistic Fellow with New York Theater Workshop, Time Warner Directing Fellow with Women’s Project Theater and as an Apprentice Stage Director with both Merola Opera Program in San Francisco and the Glimmerglass Festival in Upstate New York. She is also a winner of the OPERA America Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize.