This list of opera directors is a list of notable
stage producers and directors who have worked, or are working, in the
opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
world.
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Christopher Alden (born 1949)
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David Alden (born 1949)
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Neil Armfield (born 1955)
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Lucy Bailey
Lucy Bailey is a prolific British theatre director, known for productions such as ''Baby Doll'' at Britain's Royal National Theatre, National Theatre
and a notorious ''Titus Andronicus'', The Guardian review said, 'There is no getting away from o ...
(born 1962)
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Stephen Barlow (born 1969)
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Ruth Berghaus (1927–1996)
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Anthony Besch (1924–2002)
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Calixto Bieito
Calixto Bieito (Miranda de Ebro, 2 November 1963) is a Spanish theater director known for his radical interpretations of classic operas.
Biography
Born in the small town of Miranda de Ebro, Bieito moved to Barcelona with his family when he was ...
(born 1963)
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Saskia Boddeke (born 1962)
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Luc Bondy (1948–2015)
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Tito Capobianco (1931–2018)
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Albert Carré (1852–1938)
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Robert Carsen (born 1954)
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Patrice Chéreau
Patrice Chéreau (; ; 2 November 1944 – 7 October 2013) was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films '' La Reine Margot'' and ''I ...
(1944–2013)
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Martha Clarke (born 1944)
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John Copley (born 1933)
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Frank Corsaro (1924–2017)
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John Cox (born 1935)
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Paul Curran (born 1964)
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Willy Decker (born 1950)
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John Dexter (1925–1990)
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Doris Dörrie (born 1955)
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Carl Ebert
Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was a Germans, German actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his nat ...
(1887–1980)
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Peter Ebert (1918–2012)
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Johannes Erath (born 1975)
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August Everding (1928–1999)
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Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender (; born 3 July 1939), is a German mezzo-soprano opera singer and a stage director. From 1999 to 2012 she was Theater manager, intendant (managing director) of the Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck, Austria. She holds the ti ...
(born 1939)
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Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein (30 May 1901 – 8 October 1975) was an Austrian theater and opera director.
He was one of the most important exponents of textual accuracy, productions in which dramatic and musical values were exquisitely researched and b ...
(1901–1975)
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Jürgen Flimm (1941–2023)
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Götz Friedrich (1930–2000)
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John Fulljames (born 1976)
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Colin Graham
Colin Graham OBE (22 September 1931 in Hove, England – 6 April 2007 in St. Louis, Missouri) was a stage director of opera, theatre, and television.
Graham was educated at Northaw School (Hertfordshire), Stowe School and RADA. Early in his ...
(1931–2007)
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Robin Guarino (born 1960)
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Tatjana Gürbaca (born 1973)
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Peter Hall (1930–2018)
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Nicholas Heath
Nicholas Heath (–1578) was the last Roman Catholic archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor. He previously served as bishop of Worcester.
Life
Heath was born in London and graduated BA at Oxford in 1519. He then migrated to Christ's Colleg ...
(born 1959)
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Bohumil Herlischka
Bohumil Herlischka (25 April 1919 – February 2006) was a Czech opera director. After years at the National Theatre, he worked from 1957 predominantly in German opera houses, introducing a style later known as '' Regietheater'' (director's thea ...
(1919–2006)
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Jens-Daniel Herzog (born 1964)
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Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...
(born 1942)
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Kasper Holten (born 1973)
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Richard Jones (born 1953)
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Václav KaÅ¡lÃk (1917–1989)
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Peter Kazaras
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Jonathan Kent (born 1951)
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Peter Konwitschny
Peter Konwitschny (born 21 January 1945 in Frankfurt am Main) is a German opera and theatre director.
Biography
Peter Konwitschny grew up in Leipzig, where his father Franz Konwitschny was principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchest ...
(born 1945)
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Barrie Kosky
Barrie Kosky (born 18 February 1967) is an Australian theatre and opera director. Based at the Komische Oper Berlin, he has worked internationally.
Biography
Kosky was born in Melbourne, the grandson of Jewish emigrants from Europe. He attended ...
(born 1967)
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Constantine Koukias (born 1965)
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Harry Kupfer (1935–2019)
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John La Bouchardière (born 1969)
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Mark Lamos
Mark Lamos (born March 10, 1946) is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For mor ...
(born 1946)
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Rhoda Levine (born 20th century)
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Phyllida Lloyd (born 1957)
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Lotfi Mansouri (1929–2013)
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Ella Marchment (born 1992)
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Phelim McDermott (born 1963)
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David McVicar (born 1966)
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Friedrich Meyer-Oertel (born 1936)
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Dejan Miladinović (1948–2017)
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Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, comedian and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 19 ...
(1934–2019)
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Alexis Minotis (1899–1990)
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Mark Morris (born 1956)
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Elijah Moshinsky (1946–2021)
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Francisco Negrin (born 1963)
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Hans Neuenfels (1941–2022)
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Moffatt Oxenbould (born 1943)
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Àlex Ollé (born 1960)
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Richard Pearlman (1938–2006)
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Laurent Pelly (born 1962)
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Pier Luigi Pizzi (born 1930)
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Boris Pokrovsky (1912–2009)
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Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1932–1988)
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David Pountney (born 1947)
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Olivier Py
Olivier Py (; born 24 July 1965 in Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes) is a French stage director, actor and writer.
Career
In 1997, Py became director of the Centre dramatique national d'Orléans. In 2007, he became director of the Théâtre de l'Odéon i ...
(born 1965)
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Lamberto Puggelli (1938–2013)
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Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-gard ...
(1873–1943)
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Günther Rennert (1911–1978)
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Rocc (born 1979)
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Luca Ronconi (1933–2015)
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Vladimir Rosing (1890–1963)
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Peter Sellars (born 1957)
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Otto Schenk
Otto Schenk (12 June 1930 – 9 January 2025) was an Austrian actor, stage director for plays and opera, and theatre director. He worked internationally at major houses such as the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in New York Cit ...
(1930–2025)
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Oscar Fritz Schuh (1904–1984)
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Daniel Slater (born 1966)
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Jacopo Spirei (born 1974)
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Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler (; ; 14 August 1921 – 25 December 1997) was an Italian stage director, theatre practitioner, actor, and politician. Strehler was one of the most significant figures in Italian theatre during his lifetime, described by Mel Gu ...
(1921–1997)
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Olivier Tambosi (born 1963)
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Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (, ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Works by Andrei Tarkovsky, His films e ...
(1932–1986)
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Mihai Timofti (born 1948)
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Mariusz Treliński (born 1962)
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Graham Vick
Sir Graham Vick (30 December 1953 – 17 July 2021) was an English opera director known for his experimental and revisionist stagings of traditional and modern operas. He worked in many of the world's leading opera houses and was artistic di ...
(1953–2021)
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Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, theatre and opera director, and screenwriter. He was one of the fathers of Italian neorealism, cinematic neorealism, but later ...
(1906–1976)
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Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
(1813–1883)
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Wieland Wagner (1917–1966)
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Wolfgang Wagner (1919–2010)
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Margarete Wallmann (1904–1992)
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Krzysztof Warlikowski (born 1962)
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Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner (born 12 May 1959) is a British director of theatre and opera, known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin Britten, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her collaborations with Irish actress Fiona ...
(born 1959)
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Keith Warner (born 1956)
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Herbert Wernicke (1946–2002)
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Robert Wilson (born 1941)
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Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, theatre and opera director, and screenwriter. He was one of the fathers of Italian neorealism, cinematic neorealism, but later ...
(1906-1976)
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Francesca Zambello (born 1956)
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Franco Zeffirelli
Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (; 12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019) was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post–World War II e ...
(1923–2019)
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Tomer Zvulun (born 1976)
Sources
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Sadie Stanley (ed.) (1998), ''
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes.
The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...
'', London: Macmillan. and
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Warrack, John; Ewan West (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera''. New York & London: Oxford University Press
{{Portal bar, Opera
Directors
Opera Directors