top of page

Based in London, Orpha Phelan hails from Co. Kilkenny, Ireland.  She has directed Le Convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali and Lalla-Roukh (Irish Times Theatre Award Nominee: Best Opera) for Wexford Festival Opera. For Irish National Opera she has directed La Bohème, Don Pasquale (Irish Times Theatre Award Nominee: Best Opera), La Cenerentola (Irish Times Theatre Award Nominee: Best Production). She has directed Billy Budd and I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Opera North, Fidelio for Longborough.

Further afield Orpha has directed La Bohème for Opera Orchestre National Montpellier, Wuthering Heights for Opéra National de Lorraine, A Quiet Place for Opera Zuid (Winner of Place de l'Opera: Best Opera Award Netherlands), Powder Her Face and Dead Man Walking for Royal Danish Opera (both Winners of The Reumert Award: Best Opera Production), Dead Man Walking for Den Norse, Jenufa (released by Arthaus Musik on DVD), Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Fiddler on the Roof and La Bohème (released by Naxos on DVD) for Malmö Opera, Dialogues des Carmelites  for RNCM, Così Fan Tutte for OTC as well as world premieres of Raising Icarus for Barber Opera and Blue Electric for The Playground Theatre

Orpha has also directed l’Orfeo at The Barbican, a collaboration with Richard Egarr and The Academy of Ancient Music. Her staging of the UK premiere of Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream, also at The Barbican, marked her first collaboration with Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has also directed I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House, under the baton of Richard Bonynge.
 
Orpha was awarded the Audience Prize (Ring Award 2005), for her concept of Le Nozze di Figaro with Graz Oper, Austria and Wagner Forum Graz; she was also a winner in the European Opera Directors’ Award 2003 for her concept of Hans Heiling for Strasbourg Opera in association with Opera Europa. She lives in London with her husband and their two sons.

bottom of page