This week’s Artist in Focus is stage director, Stephen Langridge. Stephen’s new production of Roberto Devereux opens this week at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo as the opening opera of the Donizetti Festival’s 10th
edition. The production showcases a stellar cast that includes John Osborn in the title role and uses a new Ricordi critical edition that has been specially commissioned by the Festival.
Stephen is currently the Artistic Director of Glyndebourne and was previously the Artistic Director at Gothenburg Opera, where he directed many acclaimed productions. Most notable is his complete Ring Cycle, which also played a ground-breaking role in the theatre’s sustainability effort. It was described in Opera Now as “the most significant, multi-layered, glorious, life-affirming, thought-provoking and genuinely touching Ring of modern times.”
Inspired by a performance of Harrison Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy that he attended while studying at the University of Exeter, Stephen's career has been punctuated by several critically acclaimed productions of Birtwistle's work. These include world premieres such as the ‘immaculate’ production of The Minotaur at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Io Passion at the Aldeburgh Festival.
Over the course of Stephen Langridge’s career, other notable highlights have included productions of Falstaff at Greek National Opera, Parsifal at Royal Opera House, tackled with ‘intellectual fibre and visual eloquence’, Otello at Opera di Roma and Salzburg Festival and an ‘impressively modern’ Tristan und Isolde at Staatsoper Hannover.
