Internationally recognized, Candace Evans has been praised as a stage director and choreographer
with “a flawless sense of timing” (Opera News), whose work is “genuine gripping drama” (Opera Now).
Honored by the National Music Critic’s Association of Argentina, her La Viuda Alegre
at the legendary Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires was named one of the top three operas
of the entire Argentinian season. Similarly her productions of Carmen, Eugene Onegin and The
Merry Widow were all named as top ten classical events for Madison Opera and Dallas Opera.
Following these honors, she was asked to direct Don Pasquale for the opening season of the Winspear
Opera House in Dallas. Ms. Evan’s production of Akhnaten for San Diego Opera and Indiana University
was named by the Philip Glass organization as a definitive performance.
Among Ms. Evan’s other past engagements are the opera companies of Santa Fe, Arizona,
Palm Beach, San Diego, Fort Worth, North Carolina, San Jose, Birmingham, Knoxville, Livermore and
Indianapolis, as well as the Florentine Opera and Opera Southwest. Frequently in Italy, her
production of Le Nozze di Figaro toured with the Montefeltro Festival.
Already fascinated by directing as a child, Candace loved staging fairy tales with tiny paper
theatre models. At age 12, when she was asked to direct and choreograph an hour of music and dance
for a PTA show, she knew she had found her career. “My love of creating stories, realized through
music, movement and text has never dimmed. There is complete alchemy for the soul in opera.”
Ms. Evans continued to study classical voice, ballet and theatre, culminating in a Master of Fine
Arts degree. She taught for the theatre and music departments at Southern Methodist University,
lectures nationally on mask training for singers and serves as an acting coach for numerous
companies and professionals, who seek her for her understanding of role interpretation and
physicalization of emotion.
Her own performance career spanned the wide diversity of dancing with the Wisconsin
Ballet Company, singing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, international tours in Shakespearean
roles, national voice-over and television credits and creating staged concert events. This
combination of talent and interest illustrate why her directorial style is one of such
integration of musical intent, dramatic text and the physical life of performers.
“With the addition of imagination, spectacle, color, costume, light and movement, the music and
text should be given wings. I have always had a strong vision of how the music should move in a
physical way.” Her recent production of Florencia en el Amazonas, for both San Diego Opera and
Indiana University (available on demand at the IU Opera website,
https://music.indiana.edu/iumusiclive/) very clearly illustrate this attitude, as well as the
variety of style that her work encompasses.
Firm in her belief that opera shouldn’t be viewed as formal or forbidding, Candace
retains her childhood wonder in the art form. “It’s not my job to teach, preach or scold. My
greatest wish is that the audience can be released into a world of creativity and wonder, moved by
the music and stories that investigate our world.”
Upcoming are productions include Eugene Onegin, Le Nozze di Figaro, Roméo et Juliette and a return to the Dallas Opera.
