Jonathan Kent (director)
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Kent is an English theatre director and opera director. He is best known as a director/producer partner of Ian McDiarmid
at the Almeida Theatre
from 1990 to 2002.
. Working under Giles Havergal
and Philip Prowse
at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, he found that "acting taught him just how difficult it is to act .... acting is a valiant pursuit".
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 productions transferring to the West End
(14 between 1990 and 2002 under Kent's tenure) and also to Broadway
.
In 1995/6, he directed Mother Courage and Her Children
at the Royal National Theatre
, which helped Diana Rigg
earn an Evening Standard Theatre Award for her performance in the title role. For the stage, Kent's most recent production of Brian Friel
's Faith Healer
was a success in both Dublin and on Broadway
.
On 9 July 2007 it was announced that Kent had been invited to direct three plays at the Haymarket Theatre
from September 2007 as a means of re-invigorating the West End theatre
scene. These were William Wycherley
's The Country Wife
, Edward Bond
's The Sea
, and Marguerite
, a musical based on La Dame aux camélias
, with music by Michel Legrand
and book by Alain Boublil
.
's 2003 season production of Katya Kabanova, a production received with great acclaim.
His first British production was not actually an opera at all but Michael Tippett
's oratorio, A Child of Our Time
in 2005. He returned that same year to Santa Fe
for Mozart's Lucio Silla
and again in 2006, when he directed the US premiere of Thomas Adès
' The Tempest
, which received significant critical acclaim:
In Britain, Kent's recent work in opera has been on a new production of Puccini's Tosca
for the Royal Opera House
, 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", he said...."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."
In 2007 Kent directed Richard Strauss
' Elektra
at the Mariinsky Theatre
in St Petersburg and Benjamin Britten
's The Turn of the Screw
for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera
in its 2007 season. He returned to the Santa Fe Opera
in June 2008 to direct a new production of The Marriage of Figaro
. In 2009 he directed the premiere of a new opera by Paul Moravec
and Terry Teachout
, The Letter
based on Somerset Maugham's 1927 stage version of his short story
of the same name.
In 2010 Kent directed Mozart's Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne
.
Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid is a Scottish theatre actor and director, who has also made sporadic appearances on film and television.McDiarmid has had a successful career in theatre; he has been cast in many plays, while occasionally directing others and although he has appeared mostly in theatrical productions,...
at the Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...
from 1990 to 2002.
Early life
After an upbringing in South Africa, educated at the Diocesan College, he came to London in the 1970s and trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and DramaCentral School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
. Working under Giles Havergal
Giles Havergal
Giles Pollock Havergal CBE is a Scottish theatre director, actor, and playwright. He was artistic director of Glasgow's Citizens Theatre from 1969 until he stepped down in 2003, one of the triumvirate of directors at the theatre, alongside Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald.-Early...
and Philip Prowse
Philip Prowse
Philip Prowse is a stage director and designer, and was one of the triumvirate of directors at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow from 1970 until 2004....
at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, he found that "acting taught him just how difficult it is to act .... acting is a valiant pursuit".
Career
By 1990 Kent had formed an association with the ScottishScottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
actor Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid is a Scottish theatre actor and director, who has also made sporadic appearances on film and television.McDiarmid has had a successful career in theatre; he has been cast in many plays, while occasionally directing others and although he has appeared mostly in theatrical productions,...
, 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 productions transferring to the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
(14 between 1990 and 2002 under Kent's tenure) and also to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.
In 1995/6, he directed Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin...
at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, which helped Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
earn an Evening Standard Theatre Award for her performance in the title role. For the stage, Kent's most recent production of Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
's Faith Healer
Faith Healer
Faith Healer is a play by Brian Friel about the life of faith healer Francis Hardy as monologued through the shifting memories of Hardy, his wife, Grace, and stage manager, Teddy.-Synopsis:...
was a success in both Dublin and on Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
.
On 9 July 2007 it was announced that Kent had been invited to direct three plays at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
from September 2007 as a means of re-invigorating the West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
scene. These were William Wycherley
William Wycherley
William Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.-Biography:...
's The Country Wife
The Country Wife
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...
, Edward Bond
Edward Bond
Edward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved , the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK...
's The Sea
The Sea
-Films:*La Mer , an 1895 French short, black-and-white, silent documentary film directed by Louis Lumière*The Sea , a 1933 Polish short, documentary film directed by Wanda Jakubowska...
, and Marguerite
Marguerite (musical)
Marguerite is a musical with a book by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Jonathan Kent, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, and music by Michel Legrand, with original French lyrics by Boublil. Based on the romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, the musical...
, a musical based on La Dame aux camélias
The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...
, with music by Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
and book by Alain Boublil
Alain Boublil
Alain Boublil is a musical theatre lyricist and librettist, best known for his collaborations with the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg for musicals on Broadway and London's West End...
.
Opera director
Following his departure from the Almeida, Kent has emerged as a significant force in the world of opera. His operatic directing debut was during the Santa Fe OperaSanta Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
's 2003 season production of Katya Kabanova, a production received with great acclaim.
His first British production was not actually an opera at all but Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
's oratorio, A Child of Our Time
A Child of Our Time
A Child of Our Time is an oratorio written by Michael Tippett between 1939 and 1941."After more than ten years of thoughtful planning, Michael Tippett summed up his musical, political, spiritual and philosophical beliefs in his first oratorio, A Child of Our Time...
in 2005. He returned that same year to Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
for Mozart's Lucio Silla
Lucio Silla
Lucio Silla, K. 135, is an Italian opera in three acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Giovanni de Gamerra.It was first performed on 26 December 1772 at the Regio Ducal Teatro in Milan....
and again in 2006, when he directed the US premiere of Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
' The Tempest
The Tempest (Adès)
The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare.-Background and premiere performances:...
, which received significant critical acclaim:
In Britain, Kent's recent work in opera has been on a new production of Puccini's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
for the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera, London
The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
, Covent Garden. Expectations were high, since this was Covent Garden's replacement for the famous Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
production for Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
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", he said...."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."
In 2007 Kent directed Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
at the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
in St Petersburg and Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story.Due to its ambiguous content, it became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive...
for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
in its 2007 season. He returned to the Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
in June 2008 to direct a new production of The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
. In 2009 he directed the premiere of a new opera by Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec is an American composer and a University Professor at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York...
and Terry Teachout
Terry Teachout
Terry Teachout is a critic, biographer and blogger. He is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, the chief culture critic of Commentary, and the author of "Sightings," a column about the arts in America that appears biweekly in the Friday Wall Street Journal...
, The Letter
The Letter (opera)
The Letter is an opera by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout. It was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and was premiered there on July 25, 2009....
based on Somerset Maugham's 1927 stage version of his short story
The Letter (play)
The Letter is a play by W. Somerset Maugham dramatised from a short story that first appeared in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree. The story is based on a real-life scandal involving the wife of the headmaster of a school in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting...
of the same name.
In 2010 Kent directed Mozart's Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the...
.
External links
- Fiachra Gibbons, "Celebrated double act quits Almeida", The Guardian (London), 5 September 2001 (announcement of Kent and McDiarmid's departure)
- Kate Kellaway, "Almeida: end of Act One", The Observer (London), 27 January 2002 (Interview with Jonathan Kent as he departs)
- Hugh Canning, "Opera: A triumph for tragedy", The Sunday Times 18 June 2006 (review of ROH's new Tosca)