Jonathan Kent (director)
Jonathan Kent
He was appointed
Early life
Kent was born in England to architect parents.
Career
Stage director
By 1990 Kent had formed an association with the Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid, and between 1990 and 2002 as joint artistic directors, they turned the Almeida into a major producing theatre. The success of this venture—presenting a wide range of international plays—led to 14 plays produced under Kent's tenure being transferred to the West End and also to Broadway.[3] His productions for the Almeida included When We Dead Awaken; All for Love; Medea (also West End/Broadway); Chatsky; The Showman; The School for Wives; Gangster No 1; Tartuffe; The Life of Galileo; The Rules of the Game; Ivanov (also in Moscow); The Government Inspector; Naked (also West End); The Tempest; Hamlet (also Broadway); Richard II; Coriolanus (also New York/Tokyo); Phèdre; Britannicus (also West End/New York); Plenty(West End); Lulu (also Washington); Platonov and King Lear.
Other theatre work includes Le Cid, Mother Courage and Her Children, The False Servant, Oedipus and The Emperor and Galilean (National Theatre); Man of La Mancha (Broadway); Hamlet (Japan); Hecuba (Donmar); Bond's Lear (Sheffield Crucible); As You Desire Me (West End); Faith Healer (Dublin/Broadway); A Month in the Country (Chichester Festival Theatre); Sweeney Todd (Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End), Private Lives (Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End), Good People (The Hampstead Theatre and the West End) and Gypsy (Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End).
In 2007 Kent was invited to become the artistic director of the
He directed the
His acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre productions of Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov - in a new version by David Hare - played at the National Theatre, London, in 2016.[6][7]
Opera director
Following his departure from the Almeida, Kent started directing
His first British production was
Kent's production began with one of the most magical stage images I can recall in recent opera seasons. Paul Brown's permanent set is a sandy island with a pool of water representing the sea: in the prelude, a procession of fully clothed people (presumably the Neapolitan shipwreck survivors) walk out of the water like amphibious creatures, a dazzlingly surreal opening gambit in a production remarkable for its narrative clarity and observant delineation of character. Kent and Brown achieve an organic fusion of theatrical elements with the simplest of means. The dune-like 'island' provides opportunities for wittily surprising entrances – at one point, Ariel's head pops out of Prospero's magic cabinet – and perilous exits – the comic characters, Stefano and Trinculo, are swallowed up as if by quicksand.[9]
In Britain in 2006, Kent directed a new production of Puccini's Tosca for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Expectations were high, since this was Covent Garden's replacement for the famous Franco Zeffirelli production for Maria Callas in 1964, and which had been in use for 42 years. Kent "believes Tosca, which Puccini adapted from a five-act French play, is an ideal vehicle for his talents:
What I admire about it, quite apart from the thrilling music, is its theatre craft ... It's a taut, sinewy melodrama, exquisitely put together. There isn't an ounce of flesh on it ... That's what interested me: to find a way within that hurtling narrative to examine the relationships and its themes of sex, power and death.[10]
In 2007 Kent directed Richard Strauss' Elektra at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in its 2007 season.[11] He returned to Glyndebourne in 2009 to direct a new production of The Fairy-Queen with subsequent presentations in Caen, Paris and New York and Don Giovanni for the Festival and in 2012. His most recent production for Glyndebourne of Hippolyte et Aricie saw him reunited with William Christie following their successful collaboration with The Fairy-Queen internationally.
He returned to the Santa Fe Opera in June 2008 to direct a new production of
Kent made his debut at the
His production for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, Manon Lescaut, transferred to the Shanghai Opera House in 2013.[citation needed]
References
- ^ a b c Hickling, Alfred. "Profile: Jonathan Kent" The Guardian, 1 February 2008
- Roundabout Theatre, 30 March 2016
- ^ Fiachra Gibbons, "Celebrated double act quits Almeida", The Guardian (London), 5 September 2001 (announcement of Kent and McDiarmid's departure)
- ^ Michael Billington. "People Thought We Were Mad" Archived 6 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian (London), 10 July 2007
- ^ Gans, Andrew. "Star-Studded Long Day’s Journey into Night Ends Broadway Run Today", Playbill, 26 June 2016
- ^ "Young Chekhov: The Seagull" nationaltheatre.org.uk, accessed 23 September 2016
- London Evening Standard, 4 August 2016
- ^ Williams, Simon (November 2003). "In Review: From Around the World". Opera News. Vol. 68, no. 5. p. 71.
- ^ Hugh Canning, "Opera: A triumph for tragedy", The Sunday Times (London), 13 August 2006 (review of The Tempest in Santa Fe)
- ^ Neil Smith, "Curtain rises on new Tosca opera", 13 June 2006 on news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2014
- ^ Anna Picard, "The Turn of the Screw at Glyndebourne, Lewes", The Times (London), 23 October 2014 regarding the revival of this production
- ^ The Santa Fe Opera's website [full citation needed]
- ^ Service, Tom. "ENO's new Flying Dutchman: 'It will be a white-knuckle ride' ", The Guardian, 19 April 2012
- ^ Gardner, Charlotte. "The Flying Dutchman, English National Opera", theartsdesk.com, 29 April 2012