BIOGRAPHY

Download a PDF of Michael Davis' curriculum vitae here

     Michael Philip Davis is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, stage director and former operatic tenor.

     Michael recently produced, wrote and co-directed (with Robert Fredette) the documentary Regina Resnik: New York Original, streaming on CUNY TV at http://www.cuny.tv/show/cunytvspecial/PR2006636. The film biography traces the remarkable 70-year career of Regina Resnik (1922-2013), the Bronx-born international opera star, Tony®-nominated Broadway actress, stage director, filmmaker and Jewish cultural figure.

     Regina Resnik: New York Original has won the Silver Telly Award for Television Biography; the Communicator Award of Excellence in Film / Video-Documentary and the Communicator Award of Distinction in Film / Video-History / Biography. Earlier this year Regina Resnik: New York Original won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival (LAIFF). Regina Resnik: New York Original features on-screen interviews with Broadway legends Harold Prince and Joel Grey; opera stars Martina Arroyo and Teresa Stratas; and Maestros Richard Bonynge, Zubin Mehta and Craig Rutenberg. Ms. Arroyo introduces the film onscreen. Renowned mezzo-soprano Metropolitan Opera Denyce Graves is the narrator.

Photo credit: Louis Melançon, Metropolitan Opera Archives
Title Design by Robert Fredette

    In 2013 Maestro Lorin Maazel chose Michael to be Video Director of the Castleton Festival in Virginia. From 2013-15 Michael filmed La Fanciulla del West (conducted by Maestro Maazel); La Voix Humaine (the play and the opera); Madama Butterfly; Don Giovanni; Roméo et Juliette; L’Heure Espagnole; and the world premiere of Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg. (Watch an excerpt from Fanciulla at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEeTPO-kBJA)

     In 1996 Michael conceived the cultural series Remi Arts, Inc. ~ Regina Resnik Presents, presenting unique concerts and performance documentaries live nationwide, on public television and on DVD, including the three-part Jewish music series, Colors of the Diaspora, all narrated by Ms. Resnik. After sixteen years as Remi Arts Vice President, Michael became its President and Executive Director upon Ms. Resnik’s death in 2013. Under Michael’s leadership Remi Arts produced the DVD documentary, Geto: The Historic Jewish Ghetto of Venice, co-written with Ms. Resnik, recently streamed and broadcast on WNET / Thirteen. Michael was also the tenor soloist of Regina Resnik Presents broadcasts on CUNY TV and in live concert from 1997 to 2007.

Left: Die Zauberflöte, Westminster Choir College, 2011 (photo credit: J. Eubanks)
Right: Yours, Anne, New York State Theatre Institute, 2009 (photo credit: Timothy Raab)

     Michael’s stage directing credits include: Die Zauberflöte (Westminster Choir College and Connecticut Lyric Opera); Yours, Anne (based on The Diary of Anne Frank, NY State Theatre Institute); the world premiere of Puccini & Coppola’s La Coupe et les Lèvres (Hunter College) and L’Elisir d’Amore (Connecticut Lyric Opera). He also directed La Tragédie de Carmen, Trouble in Tahiti, Kurt Weill in Berlin, Down in the Valley, Gianni Schicchi, Madama Butterfly, Il Tabarro, The Merry Widow and The Medium, in the U.S. and Europe.

Michael as the Student Prince (with Michele McBride), New York City Opera, 1988;
and Faust, Kansas City, 1996

     In his earlier career as a leading tenor, Michael’s operatic parts included the title role of The Student Prince (New York City Opera); Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly (New York City Opera National Company, Central City Opera Festival); Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (Cologne); and Roméo (Houston). Other roles in the U.S. and Europe were: Alfredo in La Traviata, Faust, the title role in The Rake’s Progress, Hoffmann and Laça in Jenůfa.

     In 2013 Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė presented Michael Philip Davis with the Cross of Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania in a ceremony in New York, honoring Michael’s artistic and cultural contributions to that nation. Click here for article.