“Barlow has a conspicuous talent: international opera houses should be knocking at his door.”
Edward Seckerson, The Independent

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Stephen Barlow studied Music and Drama at Melbourne University before moving permanently to London. He made his directing debut with Trial By Jury which he staged in the Bow Street Magistrates Court for the Covent Garden Festival.

Subsequent productions have included La traviata for Singapore Lyric Opera, Dovetales (a collection of Jonathan Dove operas) for Glyndebourne Jerwood Studio, Hänsel und Gretel for Opera Holland Park, the London première of Schubert Alfonso und Estrella for University College Opera, the European première of Tobias Picker's childrens' opera Fantastic Mr Fox, La Bohème for British Youth Opera, Dialogues des Carmélites for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Idomeneo with Peter Sellars for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Elegies for Angels and Punks and Raging Queens for Chelsea Theatre and a unanimously acclaimed production of Tosca for Opera Holland Park, which was recently revived at the Richmond Theatre, London and was described by The Guardian as ‘the most brilliantly original production of Tosca to be seen in this country for decades’.

As revival director, his productions have included Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Roméo et Juliette for the Royal Opera House, Otello for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and San Francisco Opera, and La Rondine for the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra Monte Carlo and San Francisco Opera. As an apprentice director, Barlow has worked on over fifteen productions at the Royal Opera House, including the world première of Lorin Mazel’s 1984. He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg and was Associate Director on the West End musical Marguerite at the Haymarket Theatre and the last UK tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar.

Barlow’s recent productions include major new productions of Tosca for Santa Fe Opera and Carmen for Opera Theater St Louis, Don Giovanni for Opera Holland Park, Madama Butterfly for Mid Wales Opera, Die Zauberflöte for the Royal Academy Opera, and Ambroise Thomas’ La Cour de Célimène, which opened the sixtieth Wexford Festival and was nominated in the annual Irish Times Theatre Awards for Best Opera Production in 2011.

Projects in the 2012-13 season include a triple bill of rarely performed operas by Massenet and Martinu for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and revivals of Rigoletto for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and La Rondine for the Metropolitan Opera and Royal Opera House.

www.stephenbarlow.net

Stephen Barlow is represented by Intermusica.
September 2012 / 392 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.

Autumn Term Opera Triple Bill: Massenet & Martinu
Guildhall School of Music & Drama / cond. Peter Robinson
“[The] Guildhall’s latest production, two short operas by Massenet and another by Martinu, [...] succeeds wonderfully well, in Stephen Barlow’s beautifully-judged staging. [The] rattling good story [of] La Navarraise [is] told with great economy (two taut acts in just 45 minutes) and skillfully woven in Barlow’s powerful updating”.
Simon Thomas, What’s on Stage, November 2012

“Massenet's La Navarraise takes the composer out of his comfort zone into the arena of war. Stephen Barlow’s skilful production moves the setting from the 19th-century Spanish Carlist wars to a fictionalised contemporary conflict involving Basque separatism”.
George Hall, The Guardian, November 2012

“Stephen Barlow's direction and Yannis Thavoris's sets for all three operas were exemplary: straightforward, visually interesting and adding plenty of atmosphere to proceedings”.
David Karlin, One Stop Arts, November 2012

Puccini Tosca / Santa Fe Opera
cond. Frédéric Chaslin
“Director Stephen Barlow's production is emotion-packed and well-paced... memorable.”
Mary Helen Klare, El Paso Times, August 2012

“Stage Director Stephen Barlow made sure that his performers were in the right place with movements that were always justified by the action. He took full advantage of the comedic moments inherent to Act I, a device that made the gruesome tragedy that would ensue that much more agonizing to behold.”
David Sckolnik, Colorado Springs, August 2012

Bizet Carmen / Opera Theater of St Louis
“Georges Bizet’s famous 19th century opera, which he based on an 1845 novel of the same name by Prosper Merimee, is given vibrant new life in a clever film noir style conceived by director Stephen Barlow….In fact, Barlow’s fanciful treatment includes a clever delivery of the production’s titles on a screen imposed on the stage while the overture is being performed by musicians in the superior Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra -- in black and white, naturally…a stirring and resounding presentation”
Mark Bretz, Ladue News, May 2012

“Barlow's ideas were terrific: Turning the chorus of smugglers into the smuggled eliminated all kinds of problems with sets, staging, motivation and real-world geography in one stroke."Carmen" is more amenable to shifts in time than most operas, and setting the action in the 1940s worked reasonably well. And it's not often that you can surprise the longtime operagoer, at least in a good way”
Sarah Bryan Miller, STL Today, May 2012

Mozart The Magic Flute / Royal Academy Opera
cond. Jane Glover
“…genuinely very funny and makes light of the more ludicrous plot elements … a joyous evening."
Bachtrack, March 2012

Ambroise Thomas La Cour de Célimène / Wexford Festival
cond. Carlos Izcaray
“Stephen Barlow’s heavily bewigged staging was just the right side of camp.”
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, October 2011

Puccini Madam Butterfly / Mid Wales Opera / Theatr Hafren
“These audience members know what to expect. Madam Butterfly vies with La Boheme as Puccini’s most reliable tear-jerker. The production provides it, but director Stephen Barlow delivers much else besides. This is a tough-centred, precise Madam Butterfly, cleverly crafted for 2011.”
Adam Somerset, Theatre in Wales, September 2011

Donizetti Don Pasquale / Opera Holland Park / City of London Sinfonia
cond. Richard Bonynge
“What set the evening apart was the quality of Stephen Barlow's direction. All of the characters, especially Maxwell, acted their socks off, with an enormous attention to detail in their movement and interaction. The setting and costumes should serve as an object lesson to other directors as to just how much you can do with a limited budget (augmented, one suspects, by some artful product placement) and no stage equipment, despite which Barlow provided a stack of innovation and fun which completely supported the heart of the opera rather than distracting from it.”

“This production of Don Pasquale combined Barlow's fabulously inventive stage direction with Donizetti's irrepressible music and a conductor who extracted every last ounce of gaiety and good cheer that it contains. For a summer evening's entertainment, it will be hard to beat.”
David Karlin, Bach Track, 11 June 2011

“Stephen Barlow’s production was an almost total joy from start to finish. In alliance with Richmond’s sets Barlow totally convinces of the logicality and rightness of the change of locale and period. A wealth of detail in both principals and chorus performances and interaction fill out the slight story believably and affectingly. The chorus (often under-directed at this address) were fully involved even when not singing and they provided a series of delightfully sharp-etched cameos of other lives continuing around the main story. The ancient pair with thermos and individually wrapped sandwiches and the gay couple with adopted baby were particular pleasures. Yet Barlow never strayed into the infuriating area of extra-itis which so many opera directors seem incapable of resisting.”
Sebastian Petit, Opera Britannia, 9 June 2011

“A clever, original and hard-working production by Stephen Barlow.”
Robert Thicknesse, Opera Now, 8 June 2011

"When set against the greenery and obbligato peacocks of Holland Park, a work like Don Pasquale makes sense in a way it scarcely can in the corseted confines of a traditional opera house. Add a witty staging by Stephen Barlow, and Richard Bonynge – the godfather of bel canto – in the pit, and summer sunshine is guaranteed, whatever the weather.”
Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk, 8 June 2011

“Director Stephen Barlow and designer Colin Richmond take full advantage of the unusually shaped Holland Park stage… Barlow’s comic sense is acute and never stupid.”
George Hall, The Stage, 8 June 2011

“Barlow’s direction is full of memorable moments.”
Richard Nicholson, Classical Source, 7 June 2011

"On the stage, director and fellow Australian Stephen Barlow, sets the action at a fish and chip kiosk on an unnamed, but thoroughly British, seafront. The conceit works well, with the kiosk standing in for the Don's "casa", and every other site-specific reference in the libretto cunningly relocated to the seafront setting."

“The long stretch of promenade and good chunk of beach give the stage designers something to do with all the space on the huge stage. That still leaves the director [Barlow] a few problems though, given the incongruity between the size of the stage and the cast of only five. His solution is to have little vignettes going on in other corners, runners, an old couple, some patrolling police, that sort of thing. In fact, many of these fit so well into the London park setting that when they come on to the stage they cause a brief moment of concern that they haven't just wondered in from the park."
MusBook.com, 7 June 2011

Mozart Don Giovanni / Opera Holland Park 
“There’s narcissism and there’s narcissism and in his terrific new staging of Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Opera Holland Park director Stephen Barlow leaves us in no doubt as to who’s the fairest of them all. Barlow has opted for a late Victorian setting to best reflect the class and privilege which is at the heart of this turbulent 24 hours. The reckless dash of the narrative is unremitting ... dramatically this Don Giovanni is all of a piece. Barlow has a conspicuous talent: international opera houses should be knocking at his door.”
Edward Seckerson, The Independent

“Stephen Barlow's new production of Don Giovanni is sexy, dangerous and funny – as well as being very creepy, long before the ingenious hauntings begin...you'll love the production, whether you've never heard of Don Giovanni, or know the piece backwards.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“A smart and sexy success…Stephen Barlow’s staging aims for darker, subtler notes. What makes this updating work is its authentic portrait of a society raddled by hypocrisy and repression…Barlow’s high concept damnation scene rams home the Don’s own status as the sacrificial victim of others’ smugness – and proves that one of the oldest theatrical tricks in the book is still one of the most spine-chilling.”
Neil Fisher, The Times

“Don Giovanni as Dorian Gray. It’s an idea which has such a snap of conceptual rightness that it almost takes your breath away and - thanks to clever director Stephen Barlow - here it’s worked out with devilish attention to detail. And the ending, after several witty directorial red-herrings, shows Giovanni’s descent into hell with electrifying force.”
Warwick Thompson, Metro

“Stephen Barlow’s thoughtful production makes sense of the Don’s excesses by placing him in Victorian England. Barlow depicts a prurient society where sexual repression is so powerful that once passions do break the surface they erupt with ferocity and ruthlessness...(the) psychologically thrilling encounter with the Stone Guest crowns a particularly rich visual interpretation of Mozart’s opera. As with Holland Park’s Hansel and Gretel a year ago, it is Stephen Barlow’s inspired direction that will linger longest in the memory.”
Mark Valencia, What's On Stage

Puccini Tosca / Opera Holland Park 
“Opera Holland Park [...] has provided brilliant performances of standards too, Stephen Barlow's production of Tosca starring Amanda Echalaz the boldest and most successful updating and all-round performance anyone can remember.”
Opera Now, June 2012

“This is the most brilliantly original production of Tosca to be seen in this country for decades...Barlow probes the dynamics of desire and power with lethal precision.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

“Faultlessly choreographed from the violent scuffle at the close of the 'Te Deum' to the final, shocking image, Barlow's production is thoughtfully characterised and visually arresting...As compelling as the Opera North staging, bolder than both English National Opera's and the Royal Opera's, Holland Park's Tosca is a triumph.”
Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday

“Sensationally good…an invigoratingly fresh, frisson-filled Tosca…Stephen Barlow’s clever updating to 1968 shouldn’t work but it does thanks to Barlow’s unerring stagecraft.”
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times

“With its Napoleonic story and historical Roman setting, how can you freshen up Tosca for a modern audience? How do you stage Tosca's final leap of death on a small stage? By a stroke of genius, that's how. In his thrilling and astonishing production, director Stephen Barlow has updated the story to 1968 and set it in front of the Roman church of Sant' Andrea della Valle.”
Warwick Thompson, Metro

“Stephen Barlow achieved the impossible with Tosca - he updated it to the 1960s and scored a triumph. This was an endlessly inventive production, witty and moving, and even the historical anomalies faded...... The detail was staggering, and witty and always apt.”
Robert Thicknesse, Opera Now

“Stephen Barlow's staging is wonderfully imaginative.”
Stephen Pettitt, Opera

“One of the best productions Opera Holland Park has staged. This production shines a new light on a classic piece.”
Michael Darvell, Classical Source

Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel / Opera Holland Park 
“Packing the kids off to the woods for berries makes sense in Stephen Barlow's Second World War staging. Barlow's 1940s fantasy is the first to open with the wail of an all-clear siren and two little gas masks, and the first of the recent wave of Hänsel und Gretels to present this darkest of fairytales from a child's perspective…a very family-friendly show.”
Anna Picard, Independent on Sunday

“Stephen Barlow's wittily effective staging. A smashing show, Joana Seara's pint-sized Gretel and Catherine Hopper's strapping Hänsel are just the business.”
Edward Seckerson, The Independent

“Opera Holland Park's production of Hänsel und Gretel is stunning. In Stephen Barlow's excellent and charming production, the plot is seen through children's eyes. The dramatic portrayals are spot on. A dramatic and musical triumph.”
Agnes Kory, Musical Criticism

“Utter joy and pure fantasy…Opera Holland Park's production of Hänsel und Gretel makes an ideal addition to the repertoire of this company and is also a competitive addition to what has been a recent glut of productions in London. Superbly well acted.”
Kevin Rogers, Classical Source

Puccini La Rondine / Metropolitan Opera & San Francisco Opera
“Stephen Barlow, who has staged this production at the Royal Opera, has done excellent work with the Met’s cast and the chorus.”
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

"Nicolas Joel’s Art Deco production deftly staged by director Stephen Barlow."
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

Puccini Tosca / Royal Opera House
“The latest revival of Tosca at the Royal Opera, with many changes in production by Stephen Barlow, shows signs of taking the work seriously.”
Michael Tanner, The Spectator

“Stephen Barlow's revival of Kent's production is full of fine detail.”
Anthony Holden, The Observer

“Stephen Barlow has re-energised this revival.”
Hilary Finch, The Times

Puccini Madama Butterfly / Royal Opera House 
“Ironic intention comes across more clearly in this revival directed by Stephen Barlow.”
Barry Millington, Evening Standard

“Stephen Barlow’s revival of the Caurier/Leiser Madama Butterfly has mercifully dispensed with fripperies to focus on the almost intolerable human drama.”
Anthony Holden, The Observer