Michelle Rofrano

Conductor

Michelle Rofrano is an Italian American conductor with a keen interest in the intersection of art and social activism.

An avid opera conductor, she is the Music Director of City Lyric Opera, a women-led company in NYC.  She has led productions of The Queen of Spades and Trouble in Tahiti with The Glimmerglass Festival; Telemann's comic opera Don Quichotte at Camacho's Wedding with Opera Saratoga; the New York premiere of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon with City Lyric Opera; Le nozze di Figaro with the Crane School of Music; Trouble in Tahiti, Service Provider, Avow, and A Flourish of Green with Westminster Choir College; Così fan tutte and The Turn of the Screw with DC Public Opera; Così fan tutte with the Oberlin in Italy opera festival; and Suor Angelica with New Jersey Opera Project. She has served as assistant conductor for productions of La bohème and Le nozze di Figaro with Florida Grand Opera; The Cunning Little Vixen, La Traviata, Blue, and Silent Night with The Glimmerglass Festival; Eugene Onegin and Salome with Spoleto Festival USA; The Merry Wives of Windsor and L'elisir d'amore with Juilliard Opera; Man of La Mancha with Opera Saratoga; and La bohème with Opera Birmingham. 

Recent and upcoming projects include conducting Glass’s The Fall of the House of Usher with Orpheus PDX, covering Dream of the Red Chamber with San Francisco Opera, the world premiere of Proximity with Lyric Opera of Chicago, leading Menotti’s Amelia al Ballo with Juilliard Opera, leading The Turn of the Screw at Curtis Institute of Music, conducting No One is Forgotten: An Operatic Radio Play by composers Paola Prestini and Sxip Shirey, and conducting La Traviata with City Lyric Opera. Previous engagements include leading The Queen of Spades and Trouble in Tahiti with The Glimmerglass Festival; Telemann’s Don Quichotte at Comacho’s Wedding with Opera Saratoga; the New York premiere of Viardot’s Cendrillon with City Lyric Opera; and Così fan tutte and The Turn of the Screw with DC Public Opera. 2024 brings an exciting company debut with Madison Opera.