About BRETT

WHO IS BRETT?

Brett Finley came to the work of creating natural-sounding and modern supertitles for opera quite naturally. As a life-long Opera Stage Manager, she has found a way to combine her passion and knowledge of opera with her talent and love for writing humorous epic poetry for her friends’ amusement!

Through her 40 years stage managing opera, she especially came to appreciate the unique way that music and text combine in opera to transcend simple storytelling. She believes that opera should be an exciting art form for everyone, and that one of the best ways to keep these amazing stories relatable, hilarious, and heart-wrenching is by creating supertitles that are free of stuffy literal translations that have historically been inaccessible and overly-formal.

HOW SHE GOT HERE . . .

Before she began writing supertitles, Brett spent 10 years on the faculty at the University of Michigan, where she created the BFA in Stage Management program.

Since leaving the University, she has been a freelance Opera Stage Manager, a career she has passionately worked at for over 4 decades. She has stage managed at numerous companies around the country, including New Orleans Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Colorado, San Diego Opera, The Lyric Opera of Chicago, Arizona State University, University of Michigan, Operafestival di Roma, Mill City Summer Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Carolina, Glimmerglass Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, and Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre).

Brett lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband Henry, where she enjoys hiking, traveling, and playing amateur mixologist.