In 1982,
Michael Milenski of
Long Beach Opera engaged Alden to mount a conventional staging of
La Boheme. However, the following year saw a surreal production of
Benjamin Britten's
Death in Venice that was a critical and artistic breakthrough for both Alden and Long Beach Opera.
Los Angeles Times music critic
Martin Bernheimer wrote that "Alden tells the story with shadows and hints... Guided by the music, he uses people as scenery and ideas as costumes. To illustrate the central philosophical conflicts between Apollo and Dionysus, the director introduces daring images unimagined by the composer and librettist." Alden continued a long and fruitful collaboration with Long Beach Opera that yielded some unconventional settings of
Claudio Monteverdi's
Coronation of Poppea,
Orfeo and
The Return of Ulysses; Britten’s
The Rape of Lucretia;
Jacques Offenbach's
La Vie parisienne and
Bluebeard and the world premiere of
Stewart Wallace and
Michael Korie's
Hopper’s Wife. In the early '90s, he began a similarly long relationship with the
San Francisco Opera, staging the American premieres of
Aribert Reimann's
Ghost Sonata and
Hans Werner Henze's
Das Verratene Meer as well as new productions of ''
Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Coronation of Poppea'',
Virgil Thomson's
The Mother of Us All and Wallace & Korie's
Harvey Milk. He made his debut with
New York City Opera as early as 1979 with a staging of
Gioachino Rossini's
Le comte Ory and went on to create productions for NYCO and
Glimmerglass Opera that included
Handel's
Imeneo,
The Rape of Lucretia,
The Mother of Us All,
Bluebeard,
The Italian Girl in Algiers,
John Philip Sousa's
The Glass Blowers,
Mozart's
Don Giovanni. He is currently working on a new production of
Leonard Bernstein's
A Quiet Place scheduled to make its New York premiere in October 2010. Alden has worked with several major and regional American opera companies, including
Lyric Opera of Chicago,
Houston Grand Opera,
Seattle Opera,
Boston Lyric Opera,
Pittsburgh Opera,
Dallas Opera and
Los Angeles Opera. He created the world premiere production of
Anthony Davis'
Tania at Philadelphia's American Music Theater Festival in 1992. He mounted
Jonathan Dove's reduced versions of
Das Rheingold and
Die Walküre for the Eos Orchestra of New York in 2002-2004. For the
Spoleto Festival USA, he produced the American premiere of
Gluck's ''
L'Ile de Merlin'' in 2007. His work in Europe has encompassed assignments at
Welsh National Opera,
Scottish Opera (where he directed the world premiere of
David Horne's
Friend of the People),
English National Opera (staging
The Makropulos Case with
Charles Mackerras in 2006). He and British director
David Pountney co-directed
Eight Little Greats, an acclaimed series of eight short operas for
Opera North in 2005. Alden has also worked at the Opéra Comique in Paris (where he presented a triple bill of
Georges Bizet's
Djamileh,
Le docteur Miracle and
Don Procopio), Cologne Opera, Opera Zuid in The Netherlands as well as in Bilbao, Antwerp, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Geneva. ==Modernist Vision==