Director

Orpha Phelan

Norma

Biography

Orpha Phelan is an opera director from Kilkenny whose award-winning productions have been staged at leading opera houses across Europe. A frequent collaborator with Irish National Opera, she has directed productions of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, and Puccini’s La bohème. For Wexford Festival Opera she directed Donizetti’s Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (2024) and Félicien David’s Lalla-Roukh (2022). Further afield, she has directed Puccini’s La bohème, Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman, and Janáček’s Jenůfa as well as a production of Fiddler on the Roof by Bock, Harnick, and Stein for Malmö Opera. For Opera North she directed Britten’s Billy Budd and a production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi which she later directed for Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House. Other directing highlights include Beethoven’s Fidelio for Longborough Festival Opera, Mozart’s Così fan tutte with Opera Theatre Company, and Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo at the Barbican. She won a Place de l’Opéra prize for Best Opera for her production of Bernstein’s A Quiet Place at Opera Zuid. For two years running she was awarded Denmark’s prestigious Reumert Award for Best Opera Production for her productions of Thomas Adès Powder Her Face and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (both with Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen). Last season she directed a new production of Britten’s Owen Wingrave at the Royal Northern College of Music. This season she directs Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal College of Music and Handel’s Tamerlano with London Handel Festival. Further ahead she looks forward to her return to Malmö Opera with a new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka.