Music director of both the Phoenix Symphony and the Colorado Music Festival, conductor Michael Christie makes his San Francisco Opera debut in the 2012–13 season. Over his sixteen year career, he has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, DSO Berlin, Orchestre National de Lille, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Czech Philharmonic, and Sydney Symphony, among many others. Christie made his New York Philharmonic debut in March 2007. Career highlights include Roméo et Juliette and Hänsel und Gretel with Zurich Opera; Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer with Opera Theatre of St. Louis; La Traviata and Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights with Minnesota Opera; The Ghosts of Versailles at the Wexford and Aspen Festivals; Le Nozze di Figaro with Finnish National Opera; Così fan tutte with Queensland Opera; and The Death of Klinghoffer with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Christie is the former music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra. Recent operatic work includes the world premiere of Kevin Puts’s Silent Night and Madama Butterfly at the Minnesota Opera and the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.