Limelight catches up with a young opera and theatre director on the rise.

Over the next year you are directing two operas – Make No Noise for the Munich Opera Festival and Elektra for WA Opera – and a staged version of the song cycle Winterreise. What appeals to you about these forms?

I think my interest in opera comes from the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk – theatre that can embrace the synthesis of all artforms. However, I have contradictory feelings about opera. I’m drawn to the individual elements that make up an opera – music, spoken voice, sung voice, scenography – and how they can be woven together to create a whole.
 

How much does having sung as opposed to spoken text, and various other musical considerations, affect your approach to a production?

Working with a sung text immediately adds an entire new layer, and I find...