Options
Short biog
Long biog
Where to see
Client portraits
Production
photos
Back to
clients list
|
Short biography
Bill Bankes-Jones is founder and Artistic Director of Tête à Tête, and Chair of the UK's umbrella body for opera companies, the Opera and Music Theatre Forum. He has directed more than 30 world premieres of operas, as well as many revivals, plays and other events. He was one of The Times' "ten faces of opera 2005," and singled out by the Telegraph’s Rupert Christiansen in his review of the decade for his contribution to opera in the regions.
While studying philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Bill Bankes-Jones was Chair of the Scottish Student Drama Festival for two years. Subsequently, he ran the Scottish National Association of Youth Theatre while working with community groups all over Scotland.
He then joined the ITV Regional Theatre Young Directors' Scheme before working for the English National Opera, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera and the Salzburg Festivals.
As founder artistic director of Tête à Tête he has championed new audiences for new opera, and directed all of the company’s productions to date: THE FLYING FOX (Strauss' "Die Fledermaus"), SHORTS, ORLANDO PLAYS MAD (Vivaldi's "Orlando Finto Pazzo"), SIX-PACK, Britten's CANTICLES in conjunction with Streetwise Opera at Westminster Abbey, FAMILY MATTERS, PUSH!, ODYSSEUS UNWOUND, BLIND DATE, THE CUMNOR AFFAIR, and most recently SALAD DAYS, as well as three wildly successful years of TETE A TETE: THE OPERA FESTIVAL at Riverside Studios.
Other opera productions include the UK Première of Prokofiev's MADDALENA and a new composite work for the ENO - SEVEN DEADLY SINS; DIE FLEDERMAUS for English Touring Opera and A NITRO AT THE OPERA and REVIVAL! for ROH2/Nitro (televised on BBC4;) revivals of FIGARO'S WEDDING and MADAM BUTTERFLY for ENO and OTELLO for the Royal Opera, Seoul Arts Centre, and New National Theatre Tokyo; DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL for Läckö Slottsopera, Sweden (also televised), ANOTHER AMERICA: EARTH, by Errollyn Wallen for Trinity College of Music, LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES (2008) and ALBERT HERRING (2010) for TCM, and a huge community production of CARMEN for Blackheath Halls involving over 550 performers, and more recently, Mozart’s DIE SCHULDIGKEIT DES ERSTEN GEBOTS for the Classical Opera Company at Wilton’s Music Hall,
Theatre includes Frayn's NOISES OFF, Thorndike Theatre Leatherhead; Shakespeare's RICHARD II, HENRY IV 1&2, HENRY V, Tennessee Williams' KINGDOM OF EARTH and Ayckbourn's BEDROOM FARCE (nominated in best director category, TMA Regional Theatre Awards) Redgrave Theatre, Farnham, THALIDOMIDE: A MUSICAL!! at the Battersea Arts Centre and touring UK and Europe, and most recently TWELFTH NIGHT for the Oxford Shakespeare Company in Oxford and London.
Plans include Artistic Direction of the fourth TETE A TETE: THE OPERA FESTIVAL, CINDERELLA for Iford and CIRCUS TRICKS for Tête à Tête.
If you wish to paste this information
into a document, click in the text field below and copy the
text to your computer's clipboard.
|
