Regina Resnik: New York Original

Michael Philip Davis

Michael Philip Davis is the producer, author and co-director (with Robert Fredette) of the documentary, Regina Resnik: New York Original, currently streaming on CUNY TV New York 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. The documentary features on-screen interviews with Broadway legends Harold Prince and Joel Grey; opera greats Martina Arroyo and Teresa Stratas; and Maestros Richard Bonynge, Zubin Mehta and Craig Rutenberg. Ms. Arroyo introduces the film onscreen. Renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves is the narrator.

Michael has had a versatile forty-year career as director, producer, opera singer and author.

In 2013, Maestro Lorin Maazel chose Michael to be Video Director of the Castleton Festival in Virginia. Over the next three seasons Michael filmed La Fanciulla del West (the last video performance of Maestro Maazel); La Voix Humaine (both 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 series Remi Arts, Inc. ~ Regina Resnik Presents. After sixteen years as Vice President, he 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, now streaming and broadcast on WNET / Thirteen. He co-produced, co-authored and appeared in the critically acclaimed DVD, Regina Resnik Presents Colors of the Diaspora, released by Video Artists International.

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 The Tragedy of 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 US and Europe.

Operatic roles as tenor: 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 Romeo (Houston). Other roles in the U.S. and Europe: Alfredo in La Traviata, Faust, the title role in The Rake’s Progress, Hoffmann and Laça in Jenůfa. Michael was the tenor soloist of Regina Resnik Presents broadcasts on CUNY TV and in live concert from 1997 to 2007.

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