Elijah Moshinsky

Elijah Moshinsky (8 January 1946 – 14 January 2021) was an Australian opera director, theatre director and television director who worked for the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal National Theatre, and BBC Television, among other organisations.

Early years

Moshinsky's Russian Jewish parents had fled from Vladivostok to the French Concession of Shanghai, where Elijah was born. When he was five years old, the family moved to Melbourne. He attended Camberwell High School and then was an under-graduate resident at Ormond College, where in 1965 he was the set designer of a stage adaptation of Kafka's ''The Trial''. Moshinsky supported himself as an undergraduate by playing the third flute at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 1969, he directed Beckett's ''Krapp's Last Tape'' with Max Gillies at the Alexander Theatre at Monash University."Great director feted by legends he worked with"
by Peter Craven, ''The Australian'', 27 January 2021 He graduated from the University of Melbourne and in 1973 won a scholarship to St Antony's College, Oxford, where he specialised in the study of Alexander Herzen."Moshinsky, Elijah, Director", in "The many sides of Elijah Who?"
by Stephen Fay, ''The Independent'', 24 January 1993.

While still at St Antony's, Moshinsky directed a production of ''As You Like It'' for the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company. When Sir John Tooley, the General Director at Covent Garden, saw the play, he offered Moshinsky a post as a staff producer for The Royal Opera.

Opera director

In 1975, Moshinsky made his operatic debut at the Royal Opera House with "a stripped-down, low-budget production of '' Peter Grimes'' ith Jon Vickers">Jon_Vickers.html" ;"title="ith Jon Vickers">ith Jon Vickerswhich won enormous popular and critical success." That production was reproduced at the Paris Opera introducing the piece to the French public. It was also presented at La Scala, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Subsequent productions at Covent Garden include ''Lohengrin (opera), Lohengrin'', ''Tannhäuser (opera), Tannhäuser'', ''The Rake's Progress'', ''Macbeth'', '' Samson and Delilah'', ''Samson'', ''Die Entführung aus dem Serail'', ''Aida'' (with Cheryl Studer and Sir Edward Downes), ''Otello'' (with Plácido Domingo and Carlos Kleiber), ''Attila'', ''Simon Boccanegra'' and '' Stiffelio''. At the Metropolitan Opera, he directed ''Otello'', ''Samson et Dalila'' and ''Samson'', '' Un ballo in maschera'', ''Ariadne auf Naxos'', '' The Queen of Spades'', '' The Makropulos Affair'', ''Nabucco'' and ''Luisa Miller''. For the Lyric Opera of Chicago he directed ''Samson'', ''The Bartered Bride'', ''Nabucco'', ''Lohengrin'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'', ''Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'', Samuel Barber's ''Antony and Cleopatra''. For Welsh Opera he directed Berlioz's '' Béatrice et Bénédict'', ''Cavalleria rusticanna''. For Scottish Opera he directed ''La bohème'' and '' La forza del destino''. At English National Opera in 1982, he directed the British premiere of '' Le Grand Macabre'' as well as ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' and ''The Bartered Bride''. Other engagements have included '' Wozzeck'' for the Adelaide Festival, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', ''Boris Godunov'', '' Il trovatore'', ''The Barber of Seville'', ''Rigoletto'', '' La traviata'', '' Don Carlo'' with Opera Australia, '' I vespri siciliani'' in Geneva and ''Benvenuto Cellini'' at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, ''Stiffelio'' at La Scala and Vienna. At the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg he directed the original version of ''La forza del destino''. At the Novaya Opera in Moscow he produced ''The Barber of Seville''. Later, he directed Plácido Domingo in ''Simon Boccanegra'' at Covent Garden, Los Angeles and at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing. For the Korea National Opera he created new productions of ''Don Carlo'' and '' Roméo et Juliette''. In 2015, he directed ''Giovanna d'Arco'' for the Buxton Festival.

Theatre director

For the theatre stage, his credits included ''Troilus and Cressida'' and Thomas Bernhard's ''The Force of Habit'' at the Royal National Theatre in 1976, and, elsewhere in London: '' Three Sisters'' and Robert Storey's ''Light Up the Sky'' in 1987, '' Ivanov'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'' and Ronald Harwood's ''Another Time'' with Albert Finney (all in 1989), ''Matador'' (1991), '' Becket'' (1991), Ronald Harwood's ''Reflected Glory'' (1992), ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' (1992–1993), ''Richard III'' (1999), plus '' Shadowlands'' with Nigel Hawthorne in the UK and on Broadway (1990–1991). He also directed the first production of Nigel Williams' adaptation of ''Lord of the Flies'' for the RSC.

Television director

Moshinsky made a number of television films, mostly of operas. Non-operatic works, mainly for the BBC, include a number of Shakespeare's plays, televised between 1980 and 1985: ''All's Well That Ends Well'', ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', ''Cymbeline'' with Helen Mirren, ''Coriolanus'' with Alan Howard and Irene Worth, and ''Love's Labour's Lost''. He also directed Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh in Ibsen's ''Ghosts'' (1986) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan's ''The Rivals'' (1987). He also directed a three-part serial version of Kingsley Amis' novel '' The Green Man'' (1990). He also directed two documentaries for the BBC: ''Mozart in Turkey'', which was filmed in the Topkapi Palace and ''Divas for Arena''. He also directed a film of Tippet's '' The Midsummer Marriage'' for Channel 4.

Personal life

Moshinsky married Ruth Dyttman in 1970. They had two sons and lived in London.

In January 2021, Moshinsky had a fall at his London home, and was taken to hospital where he contracted COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. He died in London on 14 January 2021.

References

External links

*
Radio program
BBC Radio 4 – ''Desert Island Discs'', Elijah Moshinsky, 28 February 1993
Interview with Elijah Moshinsky
November 5, 1985

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moshinsky, Elijah
1946 births
2021 deaths
Australian theatre directors
Australian opera directors
Australian television directors
Australian people of Russian-Jewish descent
Musicians from Melbourne
University of Melbourne alumni
Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford
Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Australian Jews
White Russian emigrants to Australia
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
Shakespearean directors