Director and designer Elio Bucky is a bold new voice in opera, celebrated for their inventive staging, engaging storytelling, and deeply collaborative approach.

Elio’s work has been featured at companies across the United States, including The Atlanta Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the Merola Opera Program, and the Music Academy of the West.

The 2025–26 season showcases Elio’s expanding artistic reach, marked by new company debuts and an enduring passion for collaborating with emerging artists. This fall, Elio traveled to Berlin to pursue six weeks of intensive German language study at the Goethe-Institut, supported by a career grant from the Merola Opera Program. In November & December, Elio joins the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a Guest Stage Director of Graduate Opera Workshop. From January through March, Elio will be in residence with Palm Beach Opera as the Assistant Director of La bohème, The Pearl Fishers, and Rigoletto. They will also work with the PBO Resident Artists as a Dramatic Coach, and will be the Stage Director for their Resident Artist Cabaret with Craig Terry. In April, Elio makes their Austin Opera debut as the Assistant Director of La bohème.

In the 2024–25 season, Elio joined The Atlanta Opera as the Studio Stage Director, assisting Tomer Zvulun on productions of Rent, La bohème, The Magic Flute, Macbeth, and Siegfried. In February, Elio reunited with conductor John Morris Russell and artists from Wolf Trap Opera to remount their acclaimed production of The Seven Deadly Sins with the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. In May, Elio made their debut with Cincinnati Opera as the Revival Director of Rigoletto, hailed for their “elegant stage direction” of a “stunning production that riveted from beginning to end” (Cincinnati Business Courier). During the summer, Elio joined the Merola Opera Program as their Apprentice Stage Director. There, they directed the Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House, which earned praise for striking “a fine balance between pathos, comedy, and tragedy…with suave panache” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Elio is a queer and nonbinary artist who proudly advocates for plurality, inclusion, and innovation throughout the creative process. Elio was born and raised in San Francisco, where they were a member of the San Francisco Boys Chorus and attended the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. They trained as a singer at Northwestern University and the Chautauqua Institution, and hold a master’s degree in opera directing from the Butler Opera Center at UT Austin. An award-winning composer of music for the voice, their music has been performed by ensembles including Chanticleer and the Madison Choral Project. Their work as a projection designer has been featured on stages and concert halls across the country, including Rice University, Wolf Trap Opera, Binghamton University, and the Salina Symphony.