C R E A T I V E
Director
[stage]
Andy Morton is a freelance performer and opera director. He started his directing career as assistant to Francisco Negrin on King Arthur in The Hague, became a staff director at English National Opera on Manon with David McVicar – which he revived for the Royal Opera of Wallonie -, and subsequently worked on Graham Vick’s Ariadne on Naxos. He has worked at Opera North on The Marriage of Figaro and at Houston Grand Opera on the world premiere of Florencia en el Amazonas with Francesca Zambello, which he subsequently revived for LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, and Cincinnati Opera.
He moved to Australia in 2012 where he directed Harbour City Opera’s Suor Angelica in 2013 and subsequently established himself as a staff director with Opera Australia. He made his full directorial debut for the company by directing an international cast in La Bohème on the floating stage in Sydney Harbour. He followed that up post-Covid with a radical, critically acclaimed production of Bluebeard’s Castle at the Sydney Opera House, devised with associate Priscilla Jackman .
He first worked for the company in 2013, assisting Gale Edwards on her Joan Sutherland stage production of La Bohème, a production he has revived three times. Since then he has been a regular guest, assisting Simon Phillips on L’Elisir d’amore, Bruno Ravella on Faust, Sir David McVicar on Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, (both of which he has revived in Melbourne), and Damiano Michieletto on Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, which he also revived in Melbourne.
For Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, he has assisted Gale Edwards twice more on her Carmen and Aida, La Fura Dels Baus on Madame Butterfly, Chen Shi-Zheng on Turandot, and was at the helm in 2017 to revive Gale’s Carmen. In 2018, he worked with Simon Phillips again on a revival of his acclaimed production of Il Turco in Italia before directing Moffatt Oxenbould’s production of Madame Butterfly on OA’s inaugural tour of China. In 2019, he revived Gale Edwards’ Opera House production of Salome, with Lise Lindstrom in the title role, and worked twice with Italian director Davide Livermore, first on Anna Bolena, next with Ermonela Jaho, and then on OA’s co-production with La Scala of Verdi’s Attila.
Also for Opera Australia, he directed the concert versions of Robert Devereux at the Sydney Opera House and Satyagraha at Hamer Hall, Melbourne.
As a fluent speaker of French, Spanish and Italian, Andy has also provided surtitles for Damiano Michieletto’s Tales of Hoffman at Sydney Opera House.