Colin Graham
Colin Graham, OBE ( born September 22, 1931 in Hove, Sussex, England; † April 6, 2007 in St. Louis, USA) was an internationally renowned British stage director and opera director, who also worked in theater and television. He directed more than 50 world premieres.
Life and work
Graham attended Stowe School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Back in the fifties, he began an intensive collaboration with the composer Benjamin Britten, whose operas he brought most of the world premiere. His interest in the Japanese theater led him later to Tokyo at the composer Minoru Miki, for which he directed three operas. He also worked for the Royal Opera House and English National Opera in London and for the Glyndebourne Festival in Sussex, before he moved to St. Louis in 1978.
Graham staged the world premiere of John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles for the Metropolitan Opera, André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire for the San Francisco Opera and Bright Sheng's The Song of Majnun for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In addition, he directed productions for the Santa Fe Opera, among others Sheng's Madame Mao in 2003. He introduced his collaboration with the General Director Richard Gaddes on, which he had begun in St. Louis.
From 1985 until his death, Graham was Artistic Director of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. According to the newspaper St. Louis Post-Dispatch he died on April 6, 2007 of heart failure. One day before his death, he was still working on the imminent premiere of David Carlson's opera Anna Karenina, for which he had also written the libretto. Graham leaves no descendants.
Works
Graham also wrote the libretti for the following operas:
- Stephen Paulus, The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1982
- Minoru Miki, Joruri
- Minoru Miki, The Tale of Genji, 1999
- Bright Sheng, Madame Mao, 2003
- David Carlson, Anna Karenina, 2007