La Cenerentola De Nationale Opera, 2019 (detail) View full image

Laurent Pelly

Director

Laurent Pelly's sense of comedy operates its wizardry again and sends the audience chuckling and laughing as few others can do. There are some gags of course but, mostly, it is polished direction that fuels the comedy

Bachtrack, La Cenerentola, Dutch National Opera

Another Offenbach triumph for Laurent Pelly. After so many memorable shows, this Blue Beard confirms the director's special skills that bind him to the great musician and his librettists, the inexhaustible Meilhac and Halévy.

Diapason, Barbe bleue, Opéra de Lyon

French opera and theatre director Laurent Pelly is sought after by the world’s most prestigious houses. With a natural affinity for Italian and French repertoire, his creative curiosity has led him in recent years towards other composers including Russian and Czech. He brings theatrical insight to his work with singers and his concepts often contain surreal invention and a dark sense of humour. A master of detail, he designs the costumes for all his productions, as well as occasionally the sets.

New productions in 2021-22 include A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Lille, Cosí fan tutte at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées and a Poulenc double bill for the Glyndebourne Festival. Other current work includes La Cenerentola (Amsterdam,Geneva, Valencia and Los Angeles), Falstaff (La Monnaie, Opéra national de Bordeaux, Nikikai Opera Foundation Tokyo) and Il nozze di Figaro (Santa Fe).

Co-Director of Théâtre national de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées 2008–2018, creations include Ionesco’s La cantatrice chauve, Aristophane’s Les oiseaux, Goldoni’s L’oiseau vert (also at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin Paris) and Hugo’s Mille francs de récompense (also at l’Odéon in Paris) and Mangeront-ils? as well as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2021 he brings his sense of comic fantasy to the french-language theatrical premiere of Mary Chase’s Harvey.