I really do believe that if you don't challenge yourself and risk failing, that it's not interesting.

She went on to direct Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for the Los Angeles Opera in a co-production with the Houston Grand Opera. Taymor and her long-time partner Elliot Goldenthal were co-nominees in the Best Original Song category. A newly translated and abridged English version of the opera premiered at the Met in December 2006 and inaugurated a new series on PBS in 2010 entitled Great Performances at the Met as well as launched the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series of movie-theater transmissions.

She was the director of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark but left in March 2011 following artistic differences with the producers. She is widely known for directing the stage musical The Lion King for which Julie Taymor became the first woman to win the Tony Award for directing a musical in addition to a Tony Award for Original Costume Design.