Directors // Lee Blakeley

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

Most recently, Lee has had great success with both critics and the 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, RSAMD/Scottish Opera, Vlaamse Opera, Opera de Monte Carlo, Lille, Trieste and Tenerife. 
                            
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, Lee directed a sellout production of Die Fledermaus, also for Scottish Opera, as well as a new production of The Turn of The Screw in association with the British Council and Macedonian Opera and Ballet.

His production of Rusalka for Wexford Festival Opera in 2007 was another critically-acclaimed sellout.

In the 2005-6 Season, Lee directed Don Giovanni in Philadelphia, along with 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 fellowship took him to many of the major opera houses of North America to study Lyric Artist Development and the Cultivation of Philanthropy for Opera.

As a revival and assistant director, he worked extensively with David McVicar, in the UK and internationally.       

Past credits include a 90-minute Don Giovanni for Opera North, a site-specific production of Damned and Divine which he directed and devised for English National Opera, the world premiere of Handel's Clori, Tirsi e Fileno—Handel in Heaven for the Covent Garden Festival at London's Heaven nightclub, Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom and Cavalli's La Calisto for RSAMD,  and Le Nozze di Figaro for British Youth opera .