Robert Carsen

Director and lighting designer Robert Carsen was born in Toronto, Canada. His opera credits include: Der Rosenkavalier (Salzburg Festival, 2004); Wozzeck, Agrippina, Platée, The Turn of the Screw, Dialogues des Carmélites, Mitridate (Theater an der Wien); Ariadne auf Naxos (Bavarian State Opera, Munich); Detlev Glanert’s Oceane, L’Amour des trois oranges, Macbeth (Deutsche Oper, Berlin); Die tote Stadt (Komische Oper, Berlin); Der Ring des Nibelungen (Cologne, Venice, Shanghai, Barcelona, Madrid); Arabella, Hänsel und Gretel, The Queen of Spades, Lucia di Lammermoor (Zurich Opera); Der Rosenkavalier, Falstaff, Iphigénie en Tauride (Royal Opera House, London); Eugene Onegin, Mefistofele (Metropolitan Opera, New York); Rinaldo, L’incoronazione di Poppea (Glyndebourne Festival); Pagliacci/Cavalleria rusticana, Carmen, Fidelio, Dialogues des Carmélites (Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam); Die Zauberflöte, Elektra, Tannhäuser, Capriccio, Les Boréades, Rusalka, Alcina, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Lohengrin, Nabucco, I Capuleti ed i Montecchi, Manon Lescaut (Opéra National de Paris); Rigoletto, Semele, Die Zauberflöte, Orlando, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Iphigénie en Tauride, Orfeo ed Euridice, Lully’s Armide, Orlando, Le nozze di Figaro (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris); Platée, André Campra’s Les Fêtes vénitiennes (Opéra Comique, Paris); Giulio Cesare in Egitto, La fanciulla del West, Giorgio Battistelli’s CO2, Falstaff, Don Giovanni, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Káťa Kabanová, Dialogues des Carmélites (La Scala, Milan); Don Carlo, Battistelli’s Richard III, The Makropulos Case, La traviata (Teatro La Fenice, Venice); Idomeneo, Das Rheingold, Salome, Káťa Kabanová (Teatro Real, Madrid); a Janáček cycle (Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg) and a Puccini cycle (Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp).

For the theatre he has directed The Tempest (Comédie-Française, Paris); The Beggar’s Opera (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, and European tour); Mother Courage and Her Children (Piccolo Teatro, Milan); Singin’ in the Rain, My Fair Lady, Candide (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris); Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Roundabout Theatre, New York) and Lady Windermere’s Fan (Bristol Old Vic).

He was artistic director and designer for the exhibitions Marie Antoinette, Bohèmes and Volez, Voguez, Voyagez – Louis Vuitton at the Grand Palais, L’Impressionnisme et la Mode and Splendeurs et Misères at the Musée d’Orsay, Dalida at the Musée Galliera and Charles Garnier – Un architect pour un empire at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts – all in Paris; Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse at the Royal Academy in London and Magritte for the Art Institute of Chicago.

Robert Carsen is an Officier des Arts et des Lettres and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has received the Grand Prix de la Presse Musicale Internationale for the body of his stagings and has been awarded the French Critics’ Prize for directing three times and the Abbiati Prize of the Italian critics twice. He was recently awarded the 2021 International Opera Award for Best Director.

Future productions include Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo for the Theater an der Wien and Aida for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.