Keith Warner

Keith Reginald Warner (born 6 December 1956) is a British opera director, designer and translator.

Early years

Warner was born in Finchley, North London and then studied English and drama at the University of Bristol from 1975-78. He subsequently worked as an actor, a teacher of drama therapy and a fringe theatre director. He joined English National Opera in 1981, working as revival director, staff director and associate director until 1989. In 1985, he also worked as associate director for Scottish Opera.

Career

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Warner combined the roles of director of productions for New Sussex Opera, artistic director for Nexus Opera and associate artistic director of Opera Omaha.

In 2005, Warner staged Wagner's Tannhäuser at the Stadttheater Minden, with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie conducted by Frank Beermann.

Warner was appointed artistic director of the Royal Danish Opera, taking up the post in July 2011, but resigned after six months, along with conductor and music director Jakub Hrůša, as a result of problems with funding.

In the 2014/15 Season he directed Welsh National Opera's production of Peter Pan at the Royal Opera House and on tour.

In 1999 Warner began work on his first opera, Scoring A Century, commissioned but never performed by Portland Opera. It eventually premiered at in 2010 at Birmingham Conservatoire. In 2019 a revival in London, directed by Warner divided critics, some of whom called it 'pretentious', embarrassing, and 'unwieldy, overlong and stylistically diffuse'.

Other Operas followed: an operetta-like version of Bergmann's Fanny and Alexander and Icarus, which was performed at the 2016 Montepulciano Festival.