Lee Blakeley - LEE BLAKELEY

Lee Blakeley was born in Yorkshire and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Glasgow University.

2012 saw Lee direct a new production of THE PEARL FISHERS for the Santa Fe Opera to great acclaim.He also directed a new musical, PAT KIRKWOOD IS ANGRY, which was a great success when it played the Manchester Royal Exchange and Opera North in Autumn 2012.

Also in the 2012 season he created a new production of LES CONTES D'HOFFMAN for Canadian Opera Company and directed DEIRDRE AND ME by Rachael Halliwell, which played the Edinburgh Festival.

In 2011 Lee directed the French première of SWEENEY TODD, cast included

Caroline O'Connor and Rod Gilfry with music direction by David Charles Abel at theThéâtre du Châtelet Paris and then COSI FAN TUTTE at the Royal College of Musicin London. INTO THE WOODS for the Royal Scottish Conservatoire was also in 2011.

His 2010 Orfeo Ed Eurydice , for Minnesota Opera staring David Daniels, proved a triumph with the public and was universally acclaimed in the press.

Lee has had a great success with both the critics and public alike with his new production of MADAME BUTTERFLY at Santa Fe Opera, earlier in the year he directed the sellout French premiere of Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, staring Leslie Caron, Greta Scacchi and Lambert Wilson.

He has been an Associate Director for the Royal Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and English National Opera. Recently he has worked for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera New Zealand, Vlaamse Opera, Opera de Monte Carlo, Lille, Trieste and Tenerife.

In 2009 he directed Prokofiev's LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES for RSAMD/Scottish Opera.

In 2008 his production of Judith Weir's A NIGHT AT THE CHINESE OPERA was a huge success for Scottish Opera and was nominated for a TMA Award for Achievement in Opera.

In the 2006-7 season he directed a sell out production of DIE FLEDERMAUS also for Scottish Opera and a new production of THE TURN OF THE SCREW in association with the British Council and Macedonian Opera and Ballet and RUSALKA for the Wexford Opera Festival.

In the 2005-6 season he directed DON GIOVANNI in Philadelphia THE MERRY WIDOW for Vlaamse Opera in Ghent and Antwerp

As Artistic Director of the Opera Theatre Europe (opera-te) he directed the British Premiere of Tobias Picker's THERESE RAQUIN at the ROH's Linbury Theatre

Lee received one of the prestigious Winston Churchill Fellowships for 2007. This took him to many of the major Opera houses of North America to study Lyric Artist Development and the Cultivation of Philanthropy for Opera.

Lee directed a 90 minute DON GIOVANNI for Opera North in 1999 and in 2000 a site specifc production DAMNED AND DIVINE

which he directed and devised for English National Opera. In 2001 he directed the world premiere of Handel's CLORI, TIRSI E FILENO -HANDEL IN HEAVEN, for the Covent Garden Festival at London's Heaven nightclub. For RSAMD he has directed Judith Weir's THE VANISHING BRIDEGROOM and Cavalli's A CALISTO. In summer 2002 he directed LE NOZZE DI FIGARO for British Youth opera.

He has worked as an actor, broadcaster, translator, dramaturg and script editor.