John Cox (born 12 March 1935) [1] is an English opera director. Born in Bristol, he was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and trained at Glyndebourne as assistant to Carl Ebert, [2] and then at the York Theatre Royal and BBC television, made his directing debut with Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges for the Sadler's Wells company in 1965. [3]
In 1971 he was appointed as the first director of production at Glyndebourne, to oversee existing productions and create new ones. [4] During his tenure he worked with designers including David Hockney, Sir Hugh Casson, Michael Annals and William Dudley. [2] The critic Rodney Milnes singles out for mention Cox's Glyndbourne productions of Richard Strauss operas: Ariadne auf Naxos (1971), Capriccio (1973), Intermezzo (1974), Die schweigsame Frau (1977), Der Rosenkavalier (1980) and Arabella (1984). [3] His most successful production there, however, was of Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" (1975) which had designs by Hockney (his first venture into opera). The production was staged eight times by the Festival, the most recent in 2023 - making it among the longest lasting production of an opera. It was also seen widely in Europe and the USA.
Cox succeeded Peter Ebert as general administrator and artistic director of Scottish Opera in 1981, holding the post until 1986. [3] In 1988 he was appointed production director of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. [5]
As well as Strauss, Cox is particularly known for his Mozart and Rossini productions. [6] In 2000 he collaborated with John Stoddart to stage Capriccio at the Sydney Opera House during the 2000 Summer Olympics. [7] He has also worked widely in Europe and the USA. Milnes mentions in particular Daphne in Munich, Don Carlos in San Francisco, Un ballo in maschera in Sydney and Patience , one of the English National Opera's longest-running successes. [3] For the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Cox directed Capriccio in 2011. [8]
He is the librettist and collaborator with the American composer Theodore Morrison of a new opera about Oscar Wilde, Oscar , which was given its world premiere at The Santa Fe Opera during the Summer 2013 season. [9]
Glyndebourne is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hundred years old and listed at grade II.
The Rake's Progress is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition.
Nils Olov Håkan Hagegård is a Swedish operatic baritone. He also performs lieder and has held academic positions in the United States, Norway, and Sweden.
Capriccio, Op. 85, is the final opera by German composer Richard Strauss, subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music". It received its premiere performance at the Nationaltheater München on 28 October 1942. Strauss and Clemens Krauss wrote the German libretto, but its genesis came from Stefan Zweig in the 1930s, and Joseph Gregor further developed the idea several years later. Strauss then took it on, but finally recruited Krauss as his collaborator. Most of the final libretto is by Krauss.
Jeffrey Black is an Australian baritone who has had an active international performance career since the early 1980s. A frequent performer with Opera Australia and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, he has performed leading role with the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra Bastille, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bavarian State Opera, and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, among other opera houses. He is particularly known for his portrayals of Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville.
Garsington Opera is an annual summer opera festival founded in 1989 by Leonard Ingrams. The Philharmonia Orchestra and The English Concert are its two resident orchestras. For 21 years it was held in the gardens of Ingrams's home at Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire. Since 2011 the festival is held in Wormsley Park, the home of the Getty family near Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire, England. After Ingrams's death in 2005 Anthony Whitworth-Jones became its General Director until 2013 when Douglas Boyd became artistic director.
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.
Reri Grist is an American coloratura soprano, one of the pioneer African-American singers to enjoy a major international career in opera.
Calvin Eugene Simmons was an American symphony orchestra conductor. He was the first African-American conductor of a major orchestra.
Carl Anton Charles Ebert, was a German actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Günther Rennert was a German opera director and administrator.
Richard Jones CBE is a British theatre and opera director. He was born in London, and studied at the University of Hull and University of London. After working as a jazz musician, he spent 1982–83 on a bursary working with Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre.
John James Fryatt was an English actor and opera singer best known for his performance in comic character roles.
Thomas F. Lawlor was an Irish opera singer. In the 1960s, he became known for his performances in mostly baritone roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In the 1970s and 1980s, he performed over 60 operatic roles, usually as a bass-baritone, with various British opera companies. He was also a director in the opera department of the Royal Academy of Music and at Trinity College of Music. In later years, he moved to the US, where he continued to perform, direct and teach.
Anthony John Elwyn Besch was an English opera and theatre director. As a young man he worked at Glyndebourne assisting the directors Carl Ebert and Günther Rennert. His first work as an opera director was for Welsh National Opera in 1954. Among other British companies with whom he worked were Opera North, D'Oyly Carte, The Royal Opera, the Aldeburgh Festival and Garsington Opera. He was most closely associated with English National Opera, Scottish Opera, and the New Opera Company.
Peter Ebert was a German opera director. Son of noted German director Carl Ebert who left Nazi Germany in 1934 with his son and moved to England, he was best known for his work with Glyndebourne Opera and the Scottish Opera where he staged over 50 productions from 1963 to 1980 and which brought him great success.
John Stoddart is an Australian opera stage designer. Born in Sydney, he began his career as an architect. On his first British commission in 1967, he designed the stage for Anthony Besch's production of Così fan tutte at the Scottish Opera, where he continued to work. In 2000 he collaborated with John Cox to stage Capriccio at the Sydney Opera House during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Aside from Capriccio, with Opera Australia he has designed the sets for The Magic Flute, Ariadne auf Naxos, Patience, The Beggar's Opera, Die Fledermaus, Les Huguenots, Don Carlos, A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men, and Die tote Stadt.
Oscar is an American opera in two acts, with music by composer Theodore Morrison and a libretto by Morrison and English opera director John Cox. The opera, Morrison's first, is based on the life of Oscar Wilde, focused on his trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol. It was a co-commission and co-production between Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia. This work received its world premiere at the Santa Fe Opera on 27 July 2013. Opera Philadelphia first presented the revised version of the opera on 6 February 2015.
Moran Victor Hingston Caplat, CBE was an English opera manager, associated throughout his career with Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Stephen Langridge is a British stage and opera director. From 2012 to 2019 he was Director of the Gothenburg Opera. He is the current artistic director of the Glyndebourne Festival. He has also staged works for several prominent opera houses and festivals internationally, including the Royal Opera House in London, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Nederlandse Reisopera, the Salzburg Festival, and the Staatsoper Hannover among others.