Deborah Warner Director

British filmmaker and stage director Deborah Warner works both in the theatre and the opera worlds. 

In the theatre, she was noticed for her plays The Good Person of Szechwan, Woyzeck, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Coriolan, Titus Andronicus, Richard II, The Power Book, Happy Days, Mother Courage and Her Children, Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House, Medea, The Waste Land. She is an Associate Artist at the Barbican Theatre in London, where she has directed Julius Caesar and Sheridan's The School for Scandal. 

Her operatic credits include Fidelio, Davies' Between Worlds, Wozzeck, La Voix humaine, Don Giovanni, Fidelio, Joan of Arc at the Stake, The Turn of the Screw, The Diary of One Who Disappeared, Death in Venice, The Rape of Lucretia, Dido and Aeneas. Recently she directed Billy Budd at Teatro Real, Madrid, at Rome Opera and at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Messiah for Opéra national de Lyon and Théâtre du Châtelet, La Traviata for Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Peter Grimes for Teatro Real, Madrid and Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

During season 2020/21, she staged a new production of Phaedra by Britten for the Royal Opera House. In 2021/22, she adapted the play for a double bill featuring Phaedra and The Minotaur for the Ustinov Theatre in Bath, where she is artistic director. This season will see her directing a new production of Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House. 

She also worked on movies including The Waste Land and The Last September, and TV productions such as Hedda Gabler, Richard II and St John Passion. 

Deborah Warner was nominated Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France) in 2013. In 2019, she became the 27th Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and, in 2020, the new Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio in Bath. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006.