British director Deborah Warner made her Royal Opera debut in 1997 directing The Turn of the Screw at the Barbican Theatre (also ROH), and has returned for Billy Budd (2018/19), Peter Grimes (2021/22), Wozzeck (2022/23) and Phaedra + Minotaur (2024/25). Other opera includes Don Giovanni (Glyndebourne Festival), Eugene Onegin (Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera), St John Passion, Death in Venice, Messiah and the world premiere of Tansy Davies’s Between Worlds (English National Opera), Billy Budd (Teatro Real, Madrid, Rome Opera), Fidelio (La Scala, Milan), Wozzeck and La Voix humaine (Opera North), The Rape of Lucretia (Bayerische Staastoper) and La traviata (Vienna Festival). She was appointed Artistic Director of New York’s Park Avenue Armory in 2026. Formerly she was a resident director for the Royal Shakespeare Company (1987–9) and an associate director at the National Theatre (1989–97). Notable theatre productions include Richard II, King Lear, The Good Soul of Szechuan, Happy Days and Mother Courage and Her Children (NT), Titus Andronicus, King John and Electra (RSC), Hedda Gabler (Abbey Theatre and BBC2), Julius Caesar and The Testament of Mary (Barbican), Medea (West End, Broadway) and a worldwide tour of The Waste Land with Fiona Shaw. She was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1992, an Officier des Arts et des Lettres in 2000 and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2013. She was created a CBE in the 2006 Queen’s 80th Birthday Honours for services to drama.