Nathaniel Merrill

[4][5] Born in Newton, Massachusetts, Merrill earned degrees from Dartmouth College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Boston University.

[5] After working with the Hamburg State Opera, the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the Glyndebourne Festival, and the Salzburg Festival, he joined the staff at the Metropolitan Opera in 1956 where his first job was to create a revised staging of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1952 production of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème.

He went on to stage several Met premieres including, Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten (1966), Berlioz's Les Troyens (1973) and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1985).

Other operas he staged for the company included Adriana Lecouvreur (1963), Aida (1963), Samson et Dalila (1964), Luisa Miller (1968), Il trovatore (1969) and Parsifal (1970) among others.

Opera News said, "Merrill productions were designed to survive multiple revivals and cast changes; generally traditional and always clear, their simple but effective staging touches, such as Dulcamara's arrival via hot-air balloon in Elisir, kept Met audiences diverted and amused for a generation.