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MALENA DAYEN

Malena is an Argentinian singer and director based in New York City that creates opera performances using new and interactive technology.

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Malena is a 2022/23 Princeton Hodder fellow and was recently an assistant stage director for Deborah Colker's production of Ainadamar at the Metropolitan Opera. In May 2025 Malena will direct a new production of Anna Bolena with Resonance Works in Pittsburg.

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Last season Malena directed Poulenc's Dialogue des Carmélites at Montclair University,  Aida and the first U.S. production in Spanish of Menotti's La Médium at Forth Worth Opera.

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She co-created luzAzul, an opera for very young audiences that was presented at the Lewis Arts Center in Princeton and Chelsea Factory in New York City and toured to the Ziguzajg Festival in Malta and the Atta Festival in Türkiye.

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Malena directed and performed in Firesongs, a new piece by Thomas Cabaniss that premiered at Chelsea Factory in collaboration with National Sawdust and Cuando el fuego abrasa, a co-production of Opera Hispánica and Teatro Grattacielo featuring songs by Piazzolla and De Falla's El Amor Brujo at LaMama in New York city.​

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Malena directed The Late Walk, a new opera in collaboration with Bare Opera and the Decameron Opera Coalition that has been inducted into The Library of Congress's Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection. In 2021 Malena directed Heroes of New York for Bare opera and DOC.

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In 2020 Malena won the 1st Prize in Catapult Opera’s competition for innovation in opera and directed Teatro Grattacielo’s Fedora and Mefistofele video productions, that were selected to the Munich Music Video Awards, the 4th Dimension Independent Film Festival and the London International Music Video Awards.

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She starred and directed a production of Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires and Don Giovanni with Bare Opera in New York City.

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Along with collaborator Sangmin Chae Malena co-created Exercises on The Presence of Odradek, a new experimental operatic work performed live online.

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Malena holds an MFA from CUNY Brooklyn College in the Performance and Interactive Media Arts program and a MM and a PSD from the Mannes College of Music, the New School.

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