Lazarus - Joshua Stewart

American tenor Joshua Stewart played the title role in Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD with Madison Opera, and sang Shepherd in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by Peter Sellars for Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Joshua has performed for several world leaders, including the King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, President Barack Obama, and President George H. W. Bush.

His Sisters

Martha-Nardus Williams

Soprano Nardus Williams is currently studying at the Royal College of Music International Opera School. Nardus won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the 2016 Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards, at the Wigmore Hall. Nardus performed the role of Donna Elvira at Opera Holland Park last summer, and will be covering the role of Countess Almaviva at ENO later this year.

Mary- Mimi Doulton

Mimi Doulton is a soprano of British-Pakistani origin with a particular interest in contemporary opera and song. She is a final-year postgraduate at the Guildhall School and was a 2017 Royaumont Voix Nouvelles scholar. She has premiered work in the UK and Europe, and has recently been a recitalist as part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s ‘This is Rattle’ series.

and

Jesus- Elliott Carlton Hines 

Baritone Elliott Carlton Hines, a native of Houston, Texas is currently a member of the ensemble at the Salzburger Landestheater where he performed the role of Schaunard in La Bohème (under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla). This season he will be seen as Spalanzani in The Tales of Hoffmann and Il Conte in Le Nozze di Figaro. Hines premiered the role of Man One in David Blake and Keith Warner’s 2016 opera, Icarus, at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte Montepulciano.

 

Giorgio Battistelli - Composer

Giorgio Battistelli is Italy’s greatest contemporary living composer. His work includes Steel for orchestra, steel works and workers, Experimentum Mundi constructed out of the sounds and life of an Italian village and more recently CO2 on the future of our planet premiered at La Scala Milan.

 

Sarah Woods - Writer

Sarah writes across all media and her work has been produced by numerous companies including the RSC, Hampstead Theatre, Soho Theatre and the BBC, regional theatres and touring companies, and the Birmingham Opera Company.   Sarah is delighted to be working with Graham Vick and the composer Giorgio Battistelli on WAKE; previous work with BOC includes include new versions of the Prologue to ARIADNE auf NAXOS and FIDELIO . Sarah recently won the BBC Tinniswood Award for Best Audio Drama.

 

Graham Vick - Director

Graham Vick CBE is at the top of his profession. In demand all over the world and working with many of the greatest singers in major opera houses, he is established as one of the foremost opera directors of our times. His productions have been seen at La Scala, Milan; Metropolitan Opera, New York; Mariinsky Opera, St Petersburg; Maggio Musicale, Florence and many more.

 

Jonathon Heyward - Conductor

Originally a cellist, Jonathon Heyward is one of the most exciting conductors of his generation. Currently Assistant Conductor of The Hallé alongside Music Director Sir Mark Elder, he was selected to be part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra’s Dudamel Conducting Fellowship programme, where he debuted last December. In 2015, Jonathon won the International Competition for Young Conductors in Besançon, taking the Grand Prize aged only 23. He has conducted orchestras all over the world and will soon be seen in France, Belgium, Japan and Italy.

 

Richard Hudson – Designer

Richard Hudson won an Olivier Award for a series of plays at The Old Vic and won a Tony Award for The Lion King. He has designed sets and costumes for operas at Glyndebourne, The Metropolitan Opera, Maggio Musicale, English National Opera, Copenhagen, Bregenz, Brussels, Houston and Rome among many others. Richard and Graham Vick recently worked together on the world premiere of Morgen und Abend (Royal Opera House and Deutsche Oper).

 

Giuseppe Di Iorio - Lighting Designer

Giuseppe works regularly with Graham Vick, with whom his collaborations include Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci (Athens Festival), Die Zauberflöte (Bolshoi Theatre), Die Gezeichneten, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (Palermo), Boris Godunov, War and Peace and The Makropulos Case (Mariinsky Theatre), Manon Lescaut (La Fenice, Venice), Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Gothenburg) Morgen und Abend Royal Opera Covent Garden , and Idomeneo, Otello, La traviata, Life is a Dream, Mittwoch aus Licht, Khovanskygate: a National Enquiry , The Ice Break, (Birmingham Opera Company).

Ron Howell – Movement Director

British choreographer Ron Howell made his Royal Opera debut in 1991 on Mitridate, re di Ponto, directed by Graham Vick. He has since returned to work as choreographer or movement director on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, King Arthur, The Midsummer Marriage, The Merry Widow, Falstaff and Tamerlano, directed by Vick, and Arianna, directed by Francesca Zambello. In his extensive work in opera he has choreographed for companies including the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Mariinsky Theatre, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro Real, Madrid, La Scala, Milan, Glyndebourne Festival and the Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro. His further credits with Vick include Der Ring des Nibelungen for Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon, and Teatro Massimo, Palermo. 

Howell is Associate Director, Movement Director and Choreographer for Birmingham Opera Company, where he has choreographed productions including The Ice Break, Khovanskygate: a National Enquiry, Mittwoch aus Licht, Othello, Life Is a Dream, The Wedding, La traviata, Wozzeck, The Adventures of Vixen Sharp-Ears and Idomeneo.

 

Jack Ridley- Assistant Conductor

Jack Ridley made his debut with Glyndebourne on Tour in 2013, conducting The Rape of Lucretia.  Notable conducting engagements in recent seasons include Tosca, Patience and Electra (all ETO), and Eugene Onegin (Garsington), for which he received a Leonard Ingrams award.  He has worked as Assistant Conductor on productions of Silver Birch (Garsington), Owen Wingrave (BYO), La finta giardiniera and The Yellow Sofa (Glyndebourne), Punch and Judy (Neue Oper Wien) and La clemenza di Tito (Drottningholm).  In concert and masterclass he has conducted the London Sinfonietta, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia and Polska Filharmonia Bałtycka, and he was an active participant on the 2015 Tanglewood conducting programme. 

Anthony Almeida – Assistant Director

Anthony Almeida is a Royal Opera House Link Artist. He was Resident Director at the  Almeida Theatre, where his work includes Figures of Speech. He has also worked at Roundhouse, National Theatre, Young Vic and Bristol Old Vic as well as assisting at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and  Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.  

Zeynep Özsuca - Repetiteur

Turkish pianist Zeynep Özsuca has performed world wide as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. She has collaborated with conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Antonio Pappano, and acted as a rehearsal pianist for singers Magdalena Kozena, Rolando Villain and Gerald Finley. She has been working as a repetiteur and orchestra member with London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Opera House, Staatsoper Berlin and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.