Keith Warner
Malmö Opera - The Shining
Visually splendid, musically impressive and at times truly unsettling.
Lars Hevtor, Resident (08/24/2026)
Baden State Theatre Karlsruhe - The Wreckers
Smyth's moving late-romantic music... meets an atmospheric stage design with powerful images and equally powerful character direction by Keith Warner.
Badische Neueste Nachrichten (September 30, 2024)
State Opera Vienna - The Mastersingers
With this fascinating and also moving moment, Keith Warner elevates the closing address to the much higher level of art as a universal human cultural achievement.
The Opernmagazin (01.01.2023)
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Season 26/27 and Highlights
MALMÖ OPERA
Moravec - The Shining
PREMIERE Aug 22
TEATRO MAGGIO MUSICALE FIORENTINO
Wagner - Tristan and Isolde
PREMIERE May 20
Biography
Keith Warner is known for his profound psychological insight and strong visual style, bringing both the standard repertoire and rarely performed works to life through powerful storytelling. He has directed at the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Theater an der Wien, and the Bayreuth Festival, as well as in San Francisco and Tokyo.
Warner opens the 2026/27 season with the Scandinavian premiere of Paul Moravec’s opera The Shining at Malmö Opera. Another highlight is his new production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Alexander Soddy.
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Recent highlights include Warner’s acclaimed rediscovery of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. He has also directed Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Vienna State Opera, Puccini’s Tosca at Santa Fe Opera, and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Orff’s Die Kluge, and Weill’s Der Zar lässt sich photographieren at Oper Frankfurt. His earlier work for Oper Frankfurt includes influential productions of Britten’s Death in Venice, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, the Dallapiccola double bill Volo di notte / Il prigioniero, Reimann’s Lear, Adès’s The Tempest, Pizzetti’s Murder in the Cathedral, Verdi’s Falstaff, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.
Warner has also worked extensively with the Theater an der Wien. His productions there include Bloch’s Macbeth, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Schulhoff’s Flammen, Haydn’s Orlando paladino, Janáček’s Katja Kabanová, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. He also directed the world premiere of Christian Jost’s Egmont and, most recently, Handel’s Giulio Cesare.
For the Royal Opera in London, he directed acclaimed productions of Rossi’s Orfeo, Verdi’s Otello, and Berg’s Wozzeck. His production of Wozzeck won the 2003 Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production.
He made his Glyndebourne Festival debut in 2018 with Barber’s Vanessa. His work has also taken him to theatres in Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Brussels, Dresden, Hamburg, Warsaw, Strasbourg, Tokyo, San Francisco, Karlsruhe, and Halle, as well as to the Bayreuth, Savonlinna, and Bregenz festivals. At Bregenz, he directed a new production of Giordano’s Andrea Chénier and the 2013 world premiere of André Tchaikovsky’s The Merchant of Venice.
2026/27
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