Trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he directs opera, theatre and musical theatre. He also designed the recent Marie Antoinette exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Opera productions include Salomé (Turin); Elektra (Florence); Tannhäuser (Opéra National de Paris, Liceu); Mitridate re di Ponto (La Monnaie); Iphigénie en Tauridie (ROH, San Francisco, Lyric Opera Chicago); Candide (Châtelet, La Scala); Kát’a Kabanová (Vlaamse Opera, La Scala); Il trovatore (Bregenz Festival); La traviata (La Fenice); Der Ring des Nibelungen (Cologne); Dialogues des Carmélites (Amsterdam, La Scala, Madrid); Capriccio, Les Boréades, Rusalka, Alcina (Opéra National de Paris); Der Rosenkavalier (Salzburg Festival).
Theatre productions include Mother Courage and her Children (Piccolo Teatro, Milan), Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Beautiful Game (Cambridge Theatre, London); Sunset Boulevard (UK Tour); Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Roundabout Theatre, New York); Lady Windermere’s Fan (Bristol Old Vic); Nomade (Châtelet, which he conceived and directed for Ute Lemper).
The winner of numerous awards, including the Japanese, Spanish, French and Italian Critics’ Prizes, his future plans include Candide (ENO), Ariadne auf Naxos (Munich) and Lully’s Armide (Champs-Elysées).