George C. Wolfe, the renowned theater director who had been slated to stage the world premiere of Philip Glass's Appomattox at San Francisco Opera this October, has withdrawn from the production. A statement from the company said that he had been released from the project in order to direct a film whose timetable was rescheduled to the opera's rehearsal period.

Replacing Wolfe will be Robert Woodruff, who this summer concludes a five-year term as artistic director of American Repertory Theatre, based at Harvard University's Loeb Theater Center. He has staged productions at many of the top non-profit theater companies in the U.S., including the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco), and the Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles). Woodruff has had a long and notable relationship with playwright Sam Shepard, having directed the American premiere of Curse of the Starving Class and the world premieres of True West and Buried Child.

Appamattox, commissioned by San Francisco Opera in honor of Philip Glass's 70th birthday this year, examines the lead-up to the end of the U.S. Civil War, the South's surrender to the North at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, and the characters of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. The libretto is by Academy and Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Hampton; contemporary music champion Dennis Russell Davies will conduct; baritones Dwayne Croft and Andrew Shore will take the roles of Lee and Grant. The work opens on October 5, 2007 at the War Memorial Opera House, with five further performances through October 20. More information is available at www.sfopera.com.