BIOGRAPHY

Stephen was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and has staged productions for many of the world’s leading opera companies including Santa Fe Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago,

Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra de Monte Carlo.

≈ ≈ ≈

His recent work includes the world premiere of Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton's Itch for Opera Holland Park, 

the British premiere of Jonathan Dove and Charles Hart's Marx in London! for Scottish Opera,

a new production of Don Giovanni for Santa Fe Opera,

Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Santa Fe & Grange Festival), Hänsel und Gretel (Royal College of Music),

La Cenerentola  (Grange Festival),  Così Fan Tutte (Central City Opera, Colorado), Madama Butterfly (Danish National Opera),

Roméo et Juliette (Estonian National Opera), Flight (Scottish Opera & State Opera South Australia),

Der Wald & Lucrezia (Guildhall School of Music and Drama),

L’heure espagnol & Gianni Schicchi (Royal Academy of Music),

Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi (Hong Kong APA), 

and Die Fledermaus and Mansfield Park (Royal Northern College of Music),

Stephen has also directed the most successful non-replica staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera 

which has played in 17 countries and 19 cities throughout Europe and the Middle East since 2015.

Other productions include Rigoletto (Lyric Opera Chicago, Bucharest National Opera), Tosca (Santa Fe Opera),

Carmen (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis), La Cour de Célimène (Wexford Festival), Madama Butterfly (Mid Wales Opera),

La bohème (British Youth Opera), La traviata (Singapore Lyric Opera), Dovetales (Glyndebourne Jerwood Studio), 

Die Zauberflöte (Royal Academy of Music) and Alfonso und Estrella (University College Opera).

Stephen has a longstanding relationship with London’s Opera Holland Park where he has staged Itch, The Cunning Little Vixen, 

La bohème, Flight, Tosca, Hänsel und Gretel, Don Giovanni, Don Pasquale, La Fanciulla del West, Cavalleria Rusticana &

I Pagliacci, and the European premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox.

Stephen is also a regular guest director at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he has staged operas by

Poulenc, Massenet, Martinu, Debussy, Donizetti,Wolf-Ferrari, Haydn, Ethel Smyth and Respighi.

In addition to The Phantom of the Opera his musical theatre stagings include:

 Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens Mountview

 I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change LAMDA

State Fair GSA

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown LAMDA

Children of Eden Mountview

The Country of the Blind (new musical) GSA

and the workshop production of a new musical Caruso!

≈ ≈ ≈

Future projects include new productions of Peter Grimes (Estonian National Opera), The Pearl Fishers (New Zealand Opera debut),

and La finta giardiniera (Royal College of Music),

and revivals of Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Santa Fe Opera) and The Phantom of the Opera (Oslo).

≈ ≈ ≈

Stephen began his directing career as an apprentice director at the Glyndebourne Festival and subsequently the

Royal Opera, Covent Garden where he assisted on over 30 productions. During this time he also worked as an assistant/associate director at the Royal National Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg and in London’s West End.

≈ ≈ ≈

As revival director: Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Roméo et Juliette (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden),

Otello (Glyndebourne Festival Opera and San Francisco Opera)

 La Rondine (Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House,Covent Garden,

Opéra Monte Carlo, San Francisco Opera and the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse).