Elio Bucky is a stage director, designer, and musician. They have directed projects at Cincinnati Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, Opera Saratoga, Music Academy of the West, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and have been on the staging staffs of The Atlanta Opera and Austin Opera.

In August, Elio will travel to the Bayreuth Festival as a recipient of the Bayreuth Stipendium from the Richard Wagner Scholarship Foundation and Wagner Society of Northern California. Later this year, they will make their company debut with Pittsburgh Opera as the Revival & Associate Director of Rigoletto, direct the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows in The Future is Now: Adlers in Concert, and return to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as Guest Stage Director for Opera Workshop.

In the 2025-26 season, 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 joined the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as Guest Stage Director for Graduate Opera Workshop. From January through March, Elio was in residence with Palm Beach Opera as the Assistant Director of La bohème, The Pearl Fishers, and Rigoletto. They also worked with the PBO Resident Artists as a Dramatic Coach, and were the Stage Director for their Resident Artist Cabaret with Craig Terry. In April, Elio made their Austin Opera debut as the Assistant Director of La bohème. In the summer, Elio joined Opera Saratoga as a Festival Artist, where they directed the Family Show and assisted Mary Birnbaum on My Fair Lady.

In the 2024–25 season, Elio was in residence with The Atlanta Opera as the Studio Stage Director and with the Merola Opera Program as the Apprentice Stage Director. They made their debut with Cincinnati Opera as the Revival Director of Rigoletto, and were hailed for their “elegant stage direction” of a “stunning production that riveted from beginning to end” (Cincinnati Business Courier). Additionally, they joined conductor John Morris Russell and artists from Wolf Trap Opera as the Director and Projection Designer of The Seven Deadly Sins with the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.

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.