Irina Brook

Irina Brook is an internationally acclaimed opera and theatre director known for her bold and innovative productions. Her work in opera has garnered attention at some of the world's most prestigious venues, with recent highlights including her return to the Wiener Staatsoper for Don Pasquale and to Teatro alla Scala for La Rondine. She is set to make her Japanese opera debut with Carmen at the Tokyo Nikikai Opera. Brook’s opera career began with a successful debut directing Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for the Nederlandse Reisopera. She has since directed a diverse range of operatic works including Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Rossini’s La Cenerentola at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Verdi’s La traviata at Opéra de Lille and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Other notable productions include Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Deutsche Oper, and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wiener Staatsoper. Her work at Teatro alla Scala includes Die Sieben Todsünden & Mahagonny-Songspiel and Il matrimonio segreto. Born in Paris, Irina Brook grew up immersed in the arts, as the daughter of director Peter Brook and actress Natasha Parry. She moved to New York at 16 to study acting with Stella Adler, making her stage debut in Off-Broadway productions before transitioning to directing. Her breakthrough as a director came in London in 1996 with Beast on the Moon, followed by several successful productions including Mrs Klein and All’s Well that Ends Well. Her French adaptation of Beast on the Moon, Une Bête sur la Lune, received critical acclaim and won five Molière Awards, including Best Director and Best Play. In 2003, she founded Irina’s Dream Theatre in Paris, through which she has toured globally with productions like Brecht’s Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, Marivaux’s L’Île des Esclaves, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her work at major festivals includes the Salzburg Festival, Barbican Centre, Spoleto Festival, and her acclaimed production The Island Trilogy, which toured internationally. From 2014 to 2021, Brook served as the Director of the Théâtre National de Nice, where she continued to push artistic boundaries. In 2021, she was appointed Artist-inResidence at Teatro Stabile del Veneto, where she premiered The House of Us, an interdisciplinary installation based on Hamlet. She was also named Artist-in-Residence at Château d’Hardelot’s Elizabethan Globe Theatre in 2023. Brook’s contributions to theatre and opera have earned her numerous accolades, including the Chevalier and Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and most recently, in 2023, the Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.