Daniel Slater

London born Daniel Slater is internationally recognised as one of today's leading opera directors. He made his European debut at Opera North in 1998, with a production of The Bartered Bride that was nominated for numerous major awards and went to the Opéra National du Rhin the following year. His American debut followed three years later, an award-winning and much-acclaimed production of Wozzeck at the Santa Fe Festival.  On both sides of the Atlantic, his shows are known for their wit and humanity, intelligence and originality, clarity and modernity.

Daniel’s opera productions include a double bill of Orfeo ed Euridice/Dido & Aeneas, Tamerlano, Belshazzar (Grange Festival); Peter Grimes (Brisbane Festival/Opera Queensland); Die Zauberflöte (Yekaterinburg Opera); Fidelio, Peter Grimes (LPO, Royal Festival Hall); Tannhäuser (Estonian National Opera); Nabucco (Flanders Opera); Lohengrin (San Francisco, Houston Grand Opera, Geneva); For Garsington Opera he has directed The Cunning Little Vixen, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni (also Birgitta Festival, Tallinn), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Cenerentola, Don Pasquale (also Geneva and Caen), La Gazza Ladra; Tristan und Isolde (Norwegian National Opera); Aida, Eugene Onegin (Opera Holland Park); La Traviata (Houston Grand Opera); Salome, Wozzeck (Santa Fe); Peter Grimes (Geneva); Xerxes (Royal Opera, Stockholm), L’Arbore di Diana (Palau de les Arts, Valencia); Samson (Buxton Festival ­ nominated for the Manchester Evening News "Best Opera Production" Award); Fortunio, Rigoletto, Falstaff, Don Giovanni (Grange Park); Betrothal in a Monastery (Glyndebourne, Valencia); Manon Lescaut (Opera North, Norwegian National Opera, Oviedo); L’elisir d’amore (Opera North, WNO, New Zealand Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Chicago Lyric, San Francisco); The Bartered Bride (Opera North, Strasbourg, Valencia, New Zealand); The Cunning Little Vixen (Bregenz, San Francisco, Geneva); Il barbiere di Siviglia and Der Vogelhandler (Komische Oper, Berlin); La Boheme (Scottish Opera, Opera Ireland).

Theatre productions include The Lifespan of a Fact and Romeo and Juliet (Singapore Repertory Theatre); Educating Rita for Hambledon Productions; Making Waves at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Confusions, Salisbury Playhouse; Life Goes On, Haymarket Theatre; Grab the Dog, National Theatre Studio; The Mark, Soho Theatre Company; Gangster Apparel, Old Red Lion; Three Birds Alighting on a Field and The Honest Whore for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

A fluent speaker of French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, he began his opera career as an assistant director at Opera North, the ROH and the Opéra National de Paris. Before that he worked as the Associate Director of the Nottingham Playhouse, Acting Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre and Artistic Director of Bristol Express.  He was educated at the United World College of the Atlantic, at Bristol University, where he took a first-class degree in English, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he received a PhD for his thesis on Nietzsche's influence on D.H. Lawrence.