In the 2021-22 season, she returns to Garsington Opera to reprise the critically-acclaimed production. Additionally, she creates new productions of Amadigi di Gaula for Boston Baroque and The Rake’s Progress for The Juilliard School. She also returns to Los Angeles Opera to direct Tannhäuser and the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct Tosca; the latter title serves as her debut with Opera Colorado as well. Her future seasons hold a new production of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers for Houston Grand Opera, a reprisal of her production of Amadigi di Gaula with Philharmonia Baroque, as well as further new productions for her debuts with Santa Fe Opera and Pinchgut Opera and another return to Garsington Opera.
Last season, she directed concert stagings of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival and Don Giovanni at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp; her production of Porgy and Bess for the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic as was a new production of Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath at the Aspen Music Festival in 2019.
She received rich critical acclaim for her staging of Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, which the New York Times called “riveting…a remarkable evening of music theater” and named among its list of the Best Classical Music Performances of the Year. She made her debuts with Los Angeles Opera and Minnesota Opera, leading Don Carlo and La traviata, respectively, and has returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct Madama Butterfly after directing La bohème with the company. Ms. Muller has also led productions of Madama Butterfly for Opera Queensland, Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Houston Grand Opera. As a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s directing staff, Ms. Muller has helmed revivals of Don Giovanni as well as Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci and L'elisir d'amore.
She has been a frequent and beloved presence at Wolf Trap Opera, where she has directed new productions of Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, called “a dazzling thing all around” by the Washington Post; The Rape of Lucretia, with the Washington Post again heralding her work as “an intense wallop of a well-sung production;” Tosca, praised as “searing summer verismo” by Washington Classical Review; and Roméo et Juliette, “the drama taut” and with “compelling stage pictures,” reported the Washington Post.
Invested in the dramatic training for singers, she has twice directed the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Rising Stars concert featuring its Ryan Opera Center and has collaborated with those singers in individual dramatic coaching tailored to their repertoire. She has given masterclasses and dramatic coaching at the National Opera Studio in London, Houston Grand Opera Studio and Young Artists Vocal Academy, Wolf Trap Opera, Baylor University, University of Wisconsin, Lawrence University, and the University of Texas and has been a faculty member of the Scuola di Belcanto in Urbania, Italy. She has directed scenes programs for Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera Studio, Wolf Trap Opera Studio, and Rice University.
She holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a citizen of the United States and Germany and makes her home in Vienna.
