Malena Dayen is an Argentinian opera stage director and a Princeton Hodder Fellow.

 

This season, Malena Dayen served as associate director for Louisa Proske’s production of Tosca at Detroit Opera and as assistant director for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo. Her recent Met credits also include Deborah Colker’s productions of Ainadamar and El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.

Upcoming projects include directing a chamber version of the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda with OperaDelaware, Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street at Mannes, and a staged version of Britten’s St. Nicholas with Fairfield County Chorale.

 

Last season, Malena directed the world premiere of Derrick Wang’s Fearless for OperaDelaware, based on the life of Hazel Ying Lee, a pioneering World War II aviator and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. She also reprised El Oratorio Panhispánico, composed by Alejandro Zuleta for the MACC Ensemble, a multimedia production blending contemporary classical music with Latin American rhythms.

Previous directing engagements include a concert production of Aida featuring interactive projections and the first U.S. production in Spanish of Menotti’s La Médium for Fort Worth Opera, Dialogues des Carmélites at Montclair State University, and Roméo et Juliette, Carmen, and Frida at Opera Naples. She also led a lab at Target Margin Theatre’s Degenerate Season, co-creating a new opera based on Valerie Solanas’ Up Your Ass.

Malena is the co-creator and director of luzAzul, an opera for babies and their caregivers presented in New York City at Chelsea Factory, the Princeton Lewis Arts Center, and La MaMa Kids, and internationally at the Ziguzajg Festival in Malta and the Atta Festival in Türkiye. She also co-created and directed Bare Opera’s FireSongs by Thomas Cabaniss, presented in collaboration with National Sawdust at Chelsea Factory.

In 2020, Malena won First Prize in Catapult Opera’s competition for innovation in opera. Before focusing on directing, she enjoyed an international career as a mezzo-soprano, receiving praise from The New York Times for her performance in Paul Moravec’s The Blizzard Voices at Carnegie Hall.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Malena holds an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from CUNY Brooklyn College and a Master of Music and Professional Studies Diploma from Mannes College of Music at The New School.

(updated Oct 2026)