Biography:

Opera directing includes: Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi for Opera Zuid in the Netherlands; Al Gran Sole Carico d’Amore as associate director with Katie Mitchell for the Salzburg Festival 2009; a mixed media staging of Britten’s song cycle Les Illuminations for Cardiff International Dance Festival with National Dance Company Wales; Il Tabarro and Star-Cross’d Lovers for Welsh National Opera; movement director for Jephtha at Royal Danish Opera. I have directed revivals of Richard Jones’ landmark, award-winning productions for WNO: Hansel and Gretel, The Queen of Spades and Wozzeck. Further revival directing credits include Tosca and The Magic Flute for WNO and stagings of Rigoletto, La Traviata, Carmen and Jephtha at Birmingham Symphony Hall. I will direct my own main-stage production of Cosi fan tutte for WNO in 2011.

I joined Welsh National Opera in 2001, as a staff director, where I have worked on over 25 productions for the company and now live in Cardiff. I have also worked as a staff director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Canadian Opera Company, Toronto.

                             Gianni Schicchi - ‘Reading of the Will’

                                                  

                         RECENT PRESS: WOZZECK (2009 revival)

‘I haven't the space to do justice to Welsh National Opera's revival of Richard Jones' production of Berg's Wozzeck, but it's stunningly good, and I do urge anyone with a serious interest in opera not to miss it. The staging is arrestingly imaginative and immaculately executed...’

(5 stars The Telegraph)

‘The revival director, Benjamin Davis, and the music director, Lothar Koenigs, tenaciously stick to Jones’s template, with pacing and gestures quickly paced, sharply sculptured and darkly witty.’

(4 stars The Times)

‘It is a staging that demands to be seen. This season, beans means Wozzeck’

(5 stars The Guardian)

‘This production was WNO’s first outing at their new home in Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre in 2005. Then, I thought the performance could hardly be bettered but it turns out that I was wrong: this revival brings both the music and the production’s message even more vividly to life... a tribute both to revival director Benjamin Davis and his singer - actors’

(Seen and Heard, UK Opera Review)