Sad death of US opera director, aged 56
mainSandra Bernhard, who worked at Houston Grand Opera for many years, has died in a Houston hospice. Sandra guest directed around the country and headed the opera program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as teaching at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Photo: Alberto Demestres
Sandy was a gem, in every sense of that word: a rare individual capable of enhancing the performance of those with whom she worked, a bright and loving individual, and a person whose storytelling, in any genre, took the audience inside the narrative, enriching their experience.
I will miss our dinners and her gift for friendship.
We’ve lost one of the great reasons American opera artistry thrives.
All of us at HGO feel the loss of Sandy very keenly, as do her friends and colleagues across the country. I do want to correct the record however; Sandy was at HGO for eight years, not 20 as stated in this piece. She was previously with San Francisco Opera for nearly 20 years.