Robert Wierzel

7 projects together since 2021

Lighting Designer

American lighting designer whose decades-long career spans Broadway, opera, dance (notably 22 years with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane) and contemporary music; on the faculty of NYU Tisch.

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A figure with a spear lunges from the summit of the rock toward a woman in white below, under a full-stage wall of storm-cloud projections.

Atlanta Opera · 2026

Götterdämmerung

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Final installment of Atlanta Opera's Ring Cycle (the first complete Ring ever staged in the American Southeast), starring Stefan Vinke, Lise Lindstrom, and David Leigh.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Ping, Pang, and Pong, the three court ministers in vivid blue, orange, and green silk robes and tall masks, beside Prince Calaf in The Atlanta Opera production of Puccini's Turandot

Atlanta Opera · 2026

Turandot

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

A reimagined staging of Puccini's Turandot marking the opera's 100th anniversary, with live action by Ran Arthur Braun and wigs by Charles G. LaPointe.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Atlanta Opera · 2025

Semele

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Handel's mythological oratorio staged as Atlanta Opera's 2024-25 season closer, blending Baroque sensibility with contemporary visual design under conductor Christine Brandes.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Atlanta Opera · 2025

Siegfried

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Third chapter of Atlanta Opera's Ring Cycle, featuring a custom dragon designed in collaboration with the Center for Puppetry Arts by Jason Hines, with Stefan Vinke in the title role.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Atlanta Opera · 2023

Das Rheingold

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Atlanta Opera's first-ever Wagner production and the opening chapter of the Southeast's first complete Ring Cycle, with action design by Ran Arthur Braun.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Atlanta Opera · 2022

The Pirates of Penzance

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

A pandemic-era staging of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis director-choreographer Seán Curran, leaning into the Victorian no-touching conventions for contemporary resonance.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Atlanta Opera · 2021

Julius Caesar

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Tomer Zvulun's Mad Max-styled co-production of Handel's Giulio Cesare with the Israeli Opera, marking Atlanta Opera's first staging of the work and featuring choreography by Donald Byrd.

Robert was lighting designer

Mike was Programmer

Often works with Robert

Mike's other frequent collaborators on these shows. Click to see the shared credits.