Biography

Denni Sayers is recognized as one of the leading operatic choreographers of her generation. Much of her early work was with Opera Northern Ireland with whom she was choreographer and assistant director on countless productions. For Opera North she has choreographed Medea (Phyllida Lloyd)' for Scottish Opera Maria Stuarda (Stefan Lazaridis) and New Israeli Opera Orfeo ed Euridice (Michael McCaffery).

Recent credits together with Francesca Zambello include Cyrano de Bergerac' Carmen and Paul Bunyan (Royal Opera House' Covent Garden)' Boris Godunov (English National Opera)' the musical Rebecca (Vienna)' Arshak 11 (San Francisco)' Peter Grimes (Amsterdam)' Boris Godunov and War and Peace (Bastille), Porgy and Bess (Washington)' The Love for Three Oranges and Carmen (Sydney)' The Little Prince (Houston' Boston and for BBC), Of Mice and Men (Bregenz)' Carmen (Oslo) and again Porgy and Bess (Chicago and San Francisco); with Nikolaus Lehnhoff she has worked on Parsifal (English National Opera' San Francisco and Chicago)' Der Fliegende Holländer (San Francisco)' Lohengrin and Eugene Onegin (Baden-Baden)' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Zurich)' Boulevard Solitude (ROH and Genova)' Die Gezeichneten (Salzburg)' Fidelio (Salzburg and Lyon)' Turandot (Amsterdam)' Rigoletto (Dresden) and The Bartered Bride (Glyndebourne). She has also collaborated with Danny Slater on Der Vögelhändler (Berlin)' with Neil Armfield on Sweeney Todd (Chicago)' Ariadne auf Naxos and Don Carlos (Welsh National Opera) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Houston), with Elijah Moshinsky on The Pirates of Penzance (Chicago)' with Peter Stein on The Bassarids (Amsterdam) and with Jonathan Kent on Oedipus at the Royal National Theatre.

Her credits as a director include Lucia Lucas' groundbreaking performance as Don Giovanni for Tulsa Opera's 2018/2019 season, the revival of Of Mice and Men in Washington' new productions of Tosca in Toronto, West Side Story in Tel-Aviv and Rachel Portman's new piece Water' in addition to two Dr Who Concerts for the BBC Proms and the opera Peter Grimes (directed by Neil Armfield).

Future plans include La fanciulla del West (Amsterdam, directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff)' and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Zurich), Turandot (Amsterdam, directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff), Don Giovanni (Glyndebourne, directed by Jonathan Kent), Elektra (Salzburger Festspiele, directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff)' Ariadne auf Naxos (WNO), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Chicago) as well as a revival of the opera Ariadne auf Naxos in Boston.
- IMDb mini biography by: Denni Sayers