BM, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music - Nicholas Muni studied voice with Richard Miller and Todd Duncan and coaching with Alberta Masiello. Assistant to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and Peter Sellars (late 1980s). He served as on-site evaluator and, presently, as grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts (1985–present). Muni served as principal stage director and artistic advisor to the Kentucky Opera (1988–1990); director of drama, Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Development Program (1988–1990); artistic director, Tulsa Opera (1988–1993); artistic director, Cincinnati Opera (1996–2005). His featured productions include the American premieres of Verdi’s Le Trouvère and Rossini’s Armida (Tulsa Opera), both broadcast on NPR; the world premiere of Jackie O (Houston Grand Opera and Banff Center for the Arts); the world premieres of Libby Larsen’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and Robert Moran’s From the Towers of the Moon (The Minnesota Opera); the world stage premiere of William Bolcom’s Medusa and the North American premiere of Peter Bengtson’s The Maids (Cincinnati Opera); and the world premiere of Lorenzo Ferrero’s La Conquista (National Theater, Prague).

Under Muni’s leadership, Cincinnati Opera presented 14 company premieres, of which he directed ten: Jenufa, The Turn of the Screw, Pelléas et Mèlisande, Nabucco, Elektra, La Voix Humaine, The Seven Deadly Sins, Medusa, The Maids and Der Kaiser von Atlantis. He is the director of over 200 productions in North America, Europe and Australia at companies including the Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, San Francisco Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Vancouver Opera, Victoria State Opera (Melbourne), Edmonton Opera, Opera Ireland, Stadttheater Giessen, National Theater of Prague, Theater Erfurt, Stadttheater Bern, Anhaltisches Theater Dessau and Tiroler Landestheater (Innsbruck, Austria). Muni also directed Young Artist productions at Washington National Opera, Wolf Trap, The Merola Program, Indiana University, New England Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He is the 2003 winner of the Cincinnati Post’s Post-Corbett Award for Individual Artist of the Year and winner of a 2003 Dora Award (Toronto, Canada) for best theater production of the year (Jenufa at Canadian Opera Company). Muni’s productions at CCM include The Crucible, Albert Herring, Une Education Manquee, Le Pauvre Matelot, Werther, Cosi fan tutte, Ariadne auf Naxos, Postcard from Morocco and Of Mice and Men. He was a Professor-in-Residence at CCM from 2001–2002.