Philip Kraus has had a long and distinguished career as 
a stage director of opera, operetta, and music theater.




In 1980 he founded Light Opera Works, a professional 
company devoted to staging the operetta classics.  He served 
as Artistic Director for 19 seasons directing over 50 
productions. Under his direction the company produced 
Chicago premieres and modern revivals of Orpheus in the 
Underworld, The Beautiful Galatea, Naughty Marietta, 
Utopia Limited, The Gypsy Baron, The Grand Duke, The 
Chocolate Soldier, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, La Vie 
Parisienne, The Czardas Princess and The Duchess of 
Chicago. Mr. Kraus embarked on an exciting series of 
productions of the American stage works of Kurt Weill 
which brought back Lady in the Dark, Knickerbocker 
Holiday, and One Touch of Venus to modern audiences.
 
Trained at Northwestern University in both the Schools of 
Music and Theater, Mr. Kraus became associated with The 
Gilbert and Sullivan Guild. Detailed study of the British 
masters' works have made him a Gilbert and Sullivan 
specialist his entire creative life. He has appeared in many 
G & S roles and has directed all the Bristish duos' works for 
Light Opera Works and many other companies. His highly 
acclaimed Elizabethan production of The Mikado in 1986 
was declared by the Chicago Sun Times "a concept that kept true 
to the real spirit of the operetta".

No stranger to serious opera, Mr. Kraus served as resident 
stage director for the Pamiro Opera in Green Bay from 1988 
to 1996. Under his collaboration with conductor Miro 
Pansky, he directed productions La Traviata, Madama 
Butterfly, Rigoletto, The Magic Flute, L'Italiana in Algeri, 
Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow, The Daughter of the 
Regiment and the world premiere of Gordon Parmentier's 
The Lost Dauphin which received rave reviews  and was 
videotaped by Wisconsin Public Television for broadcast.

Mr. Kraus has also shared his directorial talents with the 
academic world having served as Director of the De Paul 
University Opera Theater from 1982-1987 and the Director 
of the Opera Program at Roosevelt University from 
1999-2002 directing productions of The Coronation of 
Poppea, Cosi fan tutte, The Crucible, Ba-ta-Clan, Suor 
Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.

An invitation from the Chicago Cultural Center saw him
produce and direct Poulenc's The Breasts of Tiresias in 
2000 and Mozart's The Impresario in 2001 for which he 
did a new translation. Most recently, he has been a guest 
at the Lyric Opera Cleveland where a recent production 
of Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan proved one of the most 
successful in the company's history. He was invited 
back in the summer of 2003 to direct The Mikado which was
done in his 1986 Elizabethan concept.
.
Mr. Kraus has also produced several fine English singing 
translations of operas and operettas. He collaborated with 
Gregory Opelka to make English performing editions of 
Oscar Straus' The Chocolate Soldier and A Waltz Dream 
and rescued Emmerick Kalman's delightful The Duchess 
of Chicago from near oblivion. Other translations include 
La Serva Padrona, Orpheus in the Underworld, Gianni 
Schicchi, Suor Angelica, The Coronation of Poppea and 
The Impresario.