LA CALISTO - Glimmerglass Festival 2024
"The highlight of this season’s Glimmerglass Festival, a beguiling production of Francesco Cavalli’s 'La Calisto'… carefully balanced the opera’s serious and comic depictions of love… Mo Zhou (director), Charlie Corcoran (sets), and Amith Chandrashaker (lighting) devised a simple but effective abstract production…"
— Heidi Waleson, Wall Street Journal
"Supremely stylish… Stage director Mo Zhou brought boundless imagination to the project and imbued it with a well-judged laser focus, fine eye to detail, and virtuosic control. But while it was seamlessly coordinated, her cunning bravura actually inspired the gifted performers to give all they had in highly personalized, seemingly spontaneous solos and interactions. commendable use of the space, and her unerring ability to balance the comic and serious opportunities in this timeless tale…"
— James Sohre, Opera Today
“Director Mo Zhou provided a nice balance of seriousness and humor suggesting that Calisto is making the best of a bad situation when she discovers that her actual seducer was Jove. There is sadness and regret beneath the rueful submission. When she is translated to the heavens as a constellation, it is seen as a kind of death by transfiguration.”
— Eli Jacobson, Parterre
“Mo Zhou’s staging stressed amusement but did not shrink from the uncomfortable realities (sexual predation, torture) underlying Ovid’s transformations; it achieved some moving visual magic at the starry conclusion.”
— David Shengold, Opera
“Mo Zhou’s La Calisto, reflected her own directorial panache, provided a star in the Glimmerglass 2024 lineup.”
— Seth Lachterman, MusicaVerum
“Mo Zhou, Director, delivered a riot of action that held the audience spellbound for two and a half hours.”
— Gerald Malone, Reaction
“Mo Zhou directs the lustful gods and demigods and worshippers of chastity in a work that is from the earliest day of opera and worth seeing today.”
— James Karas, Reviews and Views
“one of the most beautiful productions seen here in recent years… What a great show!”
— James L. Paulk, Classic Voice North America
“Director Mo Zhou knows when her singers should scurry and when they should stand still, and creates compelling stage pictures that reinforce the social and emotional dynamics of these highly charged goings-on.”
— B.A. Nilsson, Words and Music
“With a colorful production, excellent singing by a 12-member cast, and themes that have a contemporary resonance, the production makes it hard to believe the opera is such a relic.”
— Joseph Dalton, Times Union
IPHIGÉNIE EN TAURIDE - Boston Baroque 2023
Feature in Forbes for Digital Innovation
“Mo Zhou’s staging, though economical, is precise and demands concentration.”
— Kevin Wells, Bachtrack
“Zhou kept the forward energy constant, and the production benefited from her subtle blocking and directions for stylized, emotionally charged acting.”
— Keith Powers, Opera News
HER | ALIVE.UN.DEAD - Guerilla Opera 2023
“Mo Zhou’s savvy stage directions made swift and effective use of the intimate venue.”
— Aaron Keebaugh, The Art Fuse
“intense acting…excellent direction”
— Christopher Hodges, The Boston Musical Intelligencer
GIANNI SCHICCHI & BUOSO’S GHOST - Florida Grand Opera 2023
“both operas crisply conducted by Ching, made a thoroughly engaging evening, thanks in large part to Mo Zhou’s lively staging and an enthusiastic ensemble cast.”
— Robert Croan, Opera News
“With adroit staging, terrific singing from top to bottom by a large cast and an eye-filling production, this pairing is both potent theater and delightful entertainment…Mo Zhou’s deft staging brought out the twin bill’s fun.”
— South Florida Classical Review
RINALDO - Minnesota Opera 2022
Picked by StarTribune as Minnesota's Top 10 Classical Performances Highlights of 2022:
“Minnesota Opera’s Rinaldo: Nov. 19-Dec. 3: Director Mo Zhou transplanted Handel's tale of the crusades to 1980s Wall Street in a production wonderfully staged, sung and memorably costumed, christening the company's intimate North Loop space.”
— Read the complete list here.
“Full of imaginative costuming and staging ideas, it's also finely sung and acted, and that comes through clearly in Minnesota Opera's new North Loop venue, the Luminary Arts Center…In Minnesota Opera's version — the brainchild of director Mo Zhou — old money does battle with new, the silly-suited aristocracy trying to either swallow or merge with a successful startup where the leaders dress in pointy-shouldered, flame-emblazoned leather jackets, bodices and codpieces…It proved a fine setting for this "Rinaldo." Not only do those heart-tugging arias work particularly well at close range, but it's possible to admire the details on Tyler M. Holland's wild, wonderful costumes and also admire how much the singers are inhabiting characters who could be caricatures in less subtle hands.”
Read the complete review here.
— Rob Hubbard, Star Tribune
DON GIOVANNI - Florida Grand Opera 2019
“Zhou’s production successfully shone a spotlight on the inner lives of the women whose lives are uprooted by Giovanni’s violence, greed, and rage…We should feel uncomfortable watching these moments on stage, period.”
— Carly Gordon, Schmopera
“Zhou had soprano Elizabeth de Trejo stand center stage and address the audience directly…[s]peaking out like so many contemporary women at the trials of powerful men, her testimony was chilling.”
— Celeste Landeros, Opera News
“Stage director Mo Zhou framed the opera with a shrewd eye, especially abandoning cliché for tenderness in staging the couples scenes – encouraging a soft hand to the cheek, a playful gesture, a cheeky smile. She mined the relationship between Giovanni and Leporello, bringing out the subtleties in their personalities to deepen and widen their bond.”
— Steve Gladstone, MiamiArtZine
“ Mo Zhou, making her FGO debut, has taken the #MeToo movement into account and come up with a Giovanni closer in spirit to the text: A man entirely made of id, driven by a thirst for sexual conquest, and glorying in his ability to carry it off so successfully.”
— Greg Stepanich, Palm Beach Arts Paper
MEROLA GRAND FINALE - Merola Opera Program 2015
“In the direction of apprentice stage director Mo Zhou, of Nanjing, the evening unfolded with simplicity, speed and continuity perhaps none of the 30 previous grand finales I've ever seen could match: a thoroughly professional job.”
— Janos Gereben, The San Francisco Examiner
"Zhou, staging all of the scenes on a single unit set, supplied imaginative touches."
— Georgia Rowe, San Jose Mercury News
"Merola Apprentice Stage Director Mo Zhou should also be praised for keeping the action flowing and well balanced."
— Paul Duclos, Bay Crossings