Biography
In 2009 Frederic Wake-Walker directed two new commissions for Five:15 (Scottish Opera), Little England: Scenes from a Small Island (La Monnaie, Brussels), Schoenberg’s Erwartung (Snape Maltings), The Yellow Sofa (Glyndebourne Festival) and The Little Sweep (Jubilee Opera).
Recent directing includes Die Zauberflöte (Glyndebourne on Tour), the fiftieth anniversary performances of Noye’s Fludde at Orford Church, Hansel & Gretel (Opera North), Brundibar by Hans Krasa (Jubilee Opera), Birtwistle’s Secret Theatre (Royal Academy of Music), The Perfect Woman (Scottish Opera).
He formed Mahogany Opera in 2003 to create site-specific work that explores innovative ways of presenting opera. With Mahogany he has directed and produced Russian Tales: The Fox by Stravinsky and The Bear by Walton at the Village Underground, Shoreditch and the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, Britten’s Curlew River at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh which then toured to East Anglia and Southwark Cathedral, Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona and Not in Front of the Waiter by Offenbach at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh and Walton’s The Bear at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. www.mahoganyopera.org.uk
He has worked as assistant director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival, Opera North, Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera and Innsbrucker Festwochen der Altenmusik.
He was brought up in Suffolk where he sang the treble roles in three Britten operas at Snape Maltings. He has a Masters in Philosophy and Systematic Theology from Edinburgh University and has recently returned from Japan and Bali where he studied Noh and Gambuh.
