As a freelance director, Sir David Pountney CBE’s 2025–26 season includes the world premiere of Dorian Gray a new work by Elżbieta Sikora, with a libretto by Sir David, at the Poznań Opera House; a return of Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger at Teatr Wielki in Warsaw; and a return to Grange Park Opera for the world premiere of John Tavener’s Krishna.
Highlights of the 2024–25 season include Black Mask at the Poznań Opera House in Poland, La forza del destino at Theater Bonn in Germany, and Mazeppa at Grange Park Opera.
Previous productions of note include Masque of Might for Opera North in Leeds, Dalibor at the Janáček Theatre in Brno, The Passenger at Teatro Real in Madrid, Opernatelier in Bregenz, A Masked Ball at Theater Bonn in Germany, The Cunning Little Vixen for Opera North in Leeds, Le nozze di Figaro at the Opera Națională in Bucharest, Rusalka for Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Leipzig Opera in Germany, Figaro Gets a Divorce at Magdeburg Opera in Germany, and Le nozze di Figaro at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. Other major productions include The Passenger in Houston, New York, and Chicago; Kommilitonen, his third opera written in collaboration with Peter Maxwell Davies, premiered at the Royal Academy of Music in London and later in the U.S. at the Juilliard School in New York; and Spuren der Verirrten by Philip Glass, created for the opening of the new opera house in Linz, Austria, and winner of the Schikaneder Prize for Best Opera Production in 2013. He also directed Die Zauberflöte for the lake stage in Bregenz, where he served as Intendant from 2003 to 2013.
Sir David became internationally recognised through his production of Katya Kabanova at the 1972 Wexford Festival in Ireland. From 1975 to 1980, he was Director of Productions at Scottish Opera in Glasgow, where he created a Janáček cycle in collaboration with Welsh National Opera in Cardiff. He directed the world premiere of David Blake’s Toussaint at English National Opera in London in 1977 and was appointed ENO’s Director of Productions in 1980, where he directed over 20 operas and played a leading role in establishing ENO as a dynamic centre of theatrical innovation.
He has directed more than 20 world premieres, including three operas by Peter Maxwell Davies for which he also wrote the libretti, and he has translated operas into English from Russian, Czech, German and Italian. He continues to be an active and passionate writer of libretti.
From 2011 to 2019, Sir David was Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, where he directed productions including Berg’s Lulu, Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, Mosè in Egitto, Pelléas et Mélisande, the world premiere of In Parenthesis, the world premiere of Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce, and La forza del destino, which launched a Verdi trilogy. His final season featured Janáček’s Jenůfa.
August 2025
