Bio
ERHARD ROM has designed settings for over 250 productions across the globe. In 2015 he was named as a finalist in the Designer of the Year category for the International Opera Awards in London. His design work has frequently been displayed in the Prague Quadrennial International Design Exhibition and at the National Opera Center in Manhattan. Originally from Seattle Washington, he now lives just outside of New York City and teaches design at Montclair State University in the Department of Theatre and Dance.
From a very early age he showed strong interests in both theatrical design and in music, which ultimately led him to pursue, first a degree in music, at the University of Washington and then an M.F.A. in design at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Following his graduation in 1992 he began working regularly for regional companies throughout the country. While the bulk of his work has been for opera (including 14 world premiers) he has designed extensively for theater companies as well, and brings a theatrical sensibility to his operatic work that is combined with a deep understanding of the music.
His work has been seen at San Francisco Opera, The Royal Swedish Opera, Washington National Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vancouver Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Minnesota Opera, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin, Fort Worth Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Opera Colorado, Opéra de Montréal, The Atlanta Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Boston and Lyric Opera of Kansas City, among many others. His many credits include productions of Susannah, The Marriage of Figaro, Lucia di Lammermoor and Nixon in China (San Francisco Opera); Don Giovanni, Silent Night and Samson and Delilah (Washington National Opera); Semele, Eugene Onegin and La bohème (Seattle opera); Rigoletto (Houston Grand Opera); Jane Eyre, The Rape of Lucretia, Carmen, Faust and La bohème (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); Tosca, La bohème, Sweeney Todd, Don Pasquale, Falstaff, Alcina, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Così fan tutte, Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni and The Rake’s Progress (Wolf Trap Opera); Valentino, Carmen, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Widow and Rusalka (Minnesota Opera). His theatrical work has been seen in places such as Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. His work in these venues includes productions of Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ghosts, The Triumph of Love, The Weir, Inherit the Wind, Death of a Salesman, 12 Angry Men, Brighton Beach Memoir, The Whipping Man and The Illusion.
He has collaborated with many of the world’s leading directors of opera, including Francesca Zambello, Nicholas Muni, Michael Cavanagh, Tomer Zvulun, Thaddeus Strassberger, Leon Major, Colin Graham and Lillian Groag. His list of world premieres includes John Musto and Mark Campbell’s Volpone and The Inspector, both for Wolf Trap Opera, as well as Later the Same Evening for Maryland Opera Studio and the Manhattan School of Music. Other premieres include The Shining for Minnesota Opera and the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival production of A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. In 2014 he designed the European premiere of Kevin Puts recent opera, Silent Night. The production was awarded two accolades at the 2015 Irish Times Theatre Awards Ceremony, including the audience choice award and best opera production of 2014.