As part of AGMA’s AAPI Heritage Month campaign, AGMA’s Communications Coordinator interviewed Stage Director Michelle Cuizon about her journey from Manila to the Metropolitan Opera and the communities that helped her find a sense of belonging in the industry.
When Michelle Cuizon arrived at the Metropolitan Opera as a directing fellow during the 2022–23 season, she stepped into one of the world’s most influential opera houses with no guarantee of fitting in. She was new to the building, new to the industry’s inner workings, and far from home in ways that went beyond geography. What she found, piece by unexpected piece, was community.
She grew up in Manila, studied Vocal Performance at the University of Santo Tomas, moved to New York City in 2016, and eventually enrolled in a performance program at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where an acting teacher changed everything. Watching that teacher run a rehearsal, Michelle felt a pull to be on that side of the production. When she applied for the Metropolitan Opera’s directing fellowship in 2022, she made the case that everything she’d carried with her — voice training, performance, theater work — could come together as directing experience. The Met Opera agreed.
“The rehearsal room is where opera actually lives,” she believes. Audiences see the finished performance, but the real work happens before any of that, in the discoveries made with singers over weeks, in the way world-class performers push past their limits when given the space to explore.
“When you’re working with world-class performers in a place like the Met, the audience sees a polished result. But in the rehearsal room, you see the depth of their work: they dig into characters, bring their personal lives and experiences into the room, and remain present while pushing their limits. As a director, getting to be in that room—witnessing and guiding that exploration—is incredibly rewarding. I know how vulnerable and demanding that work can be. That empathy helps me direct in a way that respects their process and supports them artistically.“
Her fellowship also introduced her to her union AGMA as more than a concept she had learned during her professional development class. The fellowship program was launched in 2021 as an observation-based role. By the second season, AGMA worked to bring these fellows into the union in order to provide them with the benefits and protections of AGMA membership and the Met CBA. Since fellows have been a part of the AGMA bargaining unit and are able to serve on AGMA Committees at the Met. Fellows can participate in shop meetings and are otherwise entitled to the full benefits of AGMA membership. For Michelle, that change in status carried weight beyond the practical.
“Being part of a union meant being surrounded by people who advocated for one another; it meant having a voice and people ready to advocate on your behalf.”
She also found her voice in another way when she was introduced to Rodell Rosel, a Filipino tenor she befriended during her first season at the Met. He was the first person to speak to her in Tagalog when she arrived at the Met Opera. He then connected her to another Filipino singer, who connected her to another, building outward from that first conversation. In a field where Filipinos are rare, he kept making the community bigger. His action was understated, but it lasted with Michelle.
“Finding even one person in the chorus who was Filipino or Filipino American created an immediate connection. You suddenly have someone you can talk to in your mother tongue, which feels like a small slice of home. That kind of networking means that, as freelance artists, constantly navigating spaces and careers, we don’t feel as alone. You realize you’re part of a village, even if you’re spread across different companies and cities.”
As a Filipina American woman working in a field where people of color remain underrepresented, she has watched the industry’s conversations about casting and cultural integrity with both hope and clear-eyed skepticism. Traditional repertoire, particularly Madama Butterfly, sits at the center of those debates. The opera reliably draws audiences, which is precisely why it also tends to attract the most scrutiny over its staging and casting.
“For me, it’s an ongoing process, not just a box to check. It’s not enough to say, ‘We did one all-Asian Madama Butterfly—mission accomplished.’ That awareness has to extend to other works and stories, such as a hypothetical opera like Zorro or any other piece involving historically marginalized characters.” Michelle states. “We need to treat every story with integrity and dignity, not only those that happen to be spotlighted during AAPI month. When productions fall into caricature or misrepresentation, it becomes distracting.”
She sees genuine progress in the development and world premieres of new Asian-centered operas, and in companies building workshops and festivals specifically to support that pipeline.
Exemplary acts of resolve from her peers stay with Michelle and give her hope for what’s to come. For her personally, it opened up a different vision of what her own path might look like: an opera set in the Philippines, work that comes from her own experience rather than waiting to be invited into someone else’s.
These are the unexpected pieces of belonging that have helped Michelle Cuizon find her village. Belonging has shown up in chorus members who were kind, in unexpected connections over basketball, and in the particular warmth of speaking Tagalog with someone backstage. It has come from AGMA, from colleagues at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, from donors who want to see new work. Her Filipino heritage, she says, prepared her for exactly that: the willingness to go somewhere new and trust that if you have the talent, you’ll find your people.
“You don’t feel like you’re by yourself anymore,” she says. “All of us are freelancers trying to figure it out, and then you realize there’s actually a whole village.”