Tim Hopkins

Director / Film Maker / Designer

Tim Hopkins Tim began directing opera productions in 1989, and designing scenery in 1998. He is interested in performance disciplines of many kinds, traditional and contemporary, and in uses of historic and new technologies, including moving image, incorporating them into several shows since 1994. Starting out as an interpretive artist, he now also creates original works, alone and in collaboration. He has been commissioned to direct new productions of both historic and contemporary repertoire for The Royal Opera, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Theatre Basel, Buhnen Graz, Staatsoper Hannover, Opera North, Teatro dell'Opera Roma, Bayerische Staatsoper Festspiel, Wexford Festival, Glimmerglass, ETO, DGOS, Alternative Lyrique Paris, Almeida Opera, Aldeburgh Festival, Channel Four, Batignano Festival, BBC and others. He has worked with several composers across generations, such as Luciano Berio, Harrison Birtwistle, Judith Weir, and Lionel Bart, and Tansy Davies, Dai Fujikura, Mira Calix and Claudia Molitor. In 2001 he was awarded a NESTA Fellowship to look at lyric theatre and new technology, and consider how performance traditions could engage with the future. This was undertaken full time from 2002 to 2005, and extended to a consideration of European opera practice in this area. This period also saw a shift in focus in his work from interpretive art towards making new pieces, often in collaboration with others. The Fellowship exposed him to a wide range of practice, through involvement in projects, observing others at work, or specialist guidance. For example, in the case of film, David Curtis, Simon Pummell, Walter Donahue and Michael Mann acted as mentors and advisers. In the case of opera this included research visits to intendants in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Dresden, Hamburg, Theatre an der Wien, and Basel and Hannover (where he also directed.) In 2006 Hopkins fully resumed freelance practice, directing opera repertoire, and now also making more new work. This phase saw the site-specific opera Elephant and Castle, made with collaborators Tansy Davies, Mira Calix, Pippa Nissen, and Blake Morrison for Aldeburgh; the adaptation and direction of the quartet from Mozart’s Seraglio in Mozart Lovers for Channel Four; a live media-theatre approach to Britten’s opera for TV, Owen Wingrave, for The Royal Opera. In 2007 he was awarded an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts, hosted by the Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre at the University of Sussex, running part-time until 2012. This research context supported three new performance projects, Give Me Your Blessing…,The Lost Chord and TV Opera, each exploring lyric theater traditions in relation to new media, focusing respectively on Stravinsky and folk music, the Victorian creative imagination, and new ways of mediating operatic performance on screen. His relationship with Sussex continues, as a part-time Research Fellow in experimental music theatre. His freelance practice continues concurrently, recently as creative director of Proms Music Walk 2012 - a context for new short commissions by Alvin Curran, Judith Weir, David Sawer, Claudia Molitor, Alwynne Pritchard, Sound Intermedia, and others, in response to locations around Exhibition Road - a theme-park for 19th Century concepts of creativity - and marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Cage. With independent producer Joana Seguro he is currently developing a new music platform for Sound and Music. He is writing a short film he hopes to direct for BBC Films. He has been invited by Welsh National Opera to help develop their creative use of digital media. He has translated operas from Italian and French for performance in English, and contributed to academic publications and research events, organising the conference ‘Astonished and Terrified - opera and the transformation of the world by technology’ at Sussex in 2012. ************************************************************************* Recent Print publication Give Me Your Blessing for I go To a Foreign Land. An Instance in visual form of an intermedial opera, in Mapping Intermediality in Performance [Bay-Cheng, Chiel, Lavender, Nelson, eds.] Miniature staged photography. Amsterdam University Press, 2010 Performing Translations Radamisto Handel; original libretto Nicola Franceso Haym, after Domenico Lalli and Matteo Norris (for Opera North) The Tales of Hoffmann Offenbach; original libretto Jules Barbier, after ETA Hoffmann (for ENO)	2013
	Sound Track New context for contemporary composer, with Joana Seguro. Sound and Music
	2012
	Proms Music Walk WebsiteI mp3I mobile live performance/ audience upload. 11 new commissions from contemporary composers, each related to a physical location around Exhibition Road and Hyde Park. Creative direction, concept. www.promsmusicwalk.com BBC Proms
	Terretektohr Xenakis’ piece for 88 players and audience, with promenade site-specific events. Concept, direction. Produced for COLAB with students Trinity Laban
	The Tales of Hoffmann English translation of Offenbach’s opera, Richard Jones production ENO
	Research Fellowship Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre, University of Sussex. Part-time from 2012. See biography.
	AHRC Fellowship As above. Part-time to 2012. See biography
	2011
	Automatic Writing Media theatre piece built around orchestral performance. Conductor Nicholas Collon. With thriller writer Peter Straub. Script, concept, direction, visual design Aurora Orchestra, LSO St Lukes
	Berio Duets, Stockhausen Tierkreis Media theatre piece built around performance Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
	Bart!, Abiding Love, Cox and Box, Reveal TV projects. Subjects: Lionel Bart, Strauss’ four last songs, early G and S, the letter scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin. Development commission. BBC TV Music, Cardiff
	Transformations Media theatre piece for children, built around orchestral performance programmed by John Woolrich, works by Tansy Davies, Gerald Barry, Maxwell-Davies, Joe Cutler, Thomas Ades, Harrison Birtwistle, Bryn Harrison. Direction, design. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
	Dido and Aeneas Purcell Direction, design. Dartington
	La Voix Humaine Poulenc Direction, design. Belgrade, Serbia
	2010 - 09
	The Lost Chord II New music theatre / media theatre work inspired by Sullivan, Balfe, Tennyson, and the Victorian creative imagination. Script, direction. Opera North
	The Mask Of Orpheus, Act 2 Birtwistle Direction BBC Proms
	Die Entführung aus dem Serail Mozart Direction, scenic design. Costume, Gideon Davey. Lighting Zerlina Hughes Adaptation Nick Ridout, with Hopkins Opera North
	Give me your Blessing, For I go to a foreign land Collaboration with composer Elena Langer and folk performers from Prokrovsky Ensemble, Taganka Theatre, Moscow Lyric theatre / media theatre piece, about the state of authenticity times of technological change. Inspired by Stravinsky’s Les Noces. The Clore Studio, ROH and a virtual Clore Studio on Second Life ROH2, Opera Genesis
	Of Thee I Sing, Let em Eat Cake G and I Gershwin, and Morrie Ryskind. Satires on American politics. Scenic Design, Hopkins. Direction, Caroline Gawn Opera North
	2008 - 07
	The Tales of Hoffmann Offenbach. Direction. Design, Anthony Baker. MWO
	Owen Wingrave Britten Direction, scenic design, video design. Costume, Gideon Davey. Lighting, Wolfgang Goebbel. The Royal Opera
	Elephant and Castle Directed and devised, with Pippa Nissen (design, film, architectural concept) Tansy Davies, Mira Calix (composers) Blake Morrison (Libretto.) A new site-specific opera about the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre in South London, created for performance around the buildings and landscape of Snape Maltings, Suffolk London Artists Projects, Aldeburgh Music, Aldeburgh Festival
	The Lost Chord 1 Video installation and performance piece, commissioned by Opera North as part of Picture House, at Belsay Hall, Northumberland. Opera North / English Heritage
	A - Z Media Theatre piece for children built around orchestral performances, programmed by John Woolrich, with works by Andriessen, Xenakis,Gerald Barry, Messiaen, Woolrich, Davies, and Zappa Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
	2006 - 05
	Mozart Lovers Four x 3 minute films, adapting the quartet from Mozart's Seraglio. Direction, screenplay Tiger Aspect, Channel Four TV
	Come and Go Media Theatre piece built around orchestral performances, works by Stravinsky, Walton, Rivueltas, Woolrich . The Sage, Gateshead. Northern Sinfonia
2002 - 05
NESTA Fellowship	See biography
2002 - 01
The Rake's Progress Stravinsky	Direction, Scenic design, video co-design. Costume, Tania Spooner. Video co-design, Pippa Nissen Staatsoper Hannover
Mare Nostrum Kagel	Direction, Scenic design, video co-design. Costume, Tania Spooner. Video co-design, Pippa Nissen Theatre Basel
Only The Names Have Been Changed II	Direction, performance, Hopkins. Media theatre play by Nick Ridout, with visual artist Sigune Hamann. Set in the world of Italian terror politics in the 1970s, the so-called ‘Years of Lead’ Munich Festspiel
Kantan, Damask Drum Goehr	Direction, scenic design. Costume, Tania Spooner Aldeburgh Festival / Almeida Opera
The Forest Murmurs - an adventure in the German Romantic Imagination	Direction, scenic design, video design. Costume, Stephen Rodwell, Dramaturg, Meredith Oakes Conductor, Steven Sloane. Media Theatre work exploring the sound world, visuality, conceptual journey of work by Beethoven, Berg, Schumann, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, Marschner, texts by Tieck, Schlegel, Hegel Opera North
2000
Eugene Onegin Tchaikovsky.	Direction, scenic and video design. Costume, Tania Spooner. Lighting, Hermann Muntzer Theater Basel
Radamisto Handel	Direction. Design, Charles Edwardes Opera North
A-Ronné Berio	Direction, film design. Costume Tania Spooner. Site specific staging of Berio’s work for five voices about a cycle of life. Presented at the former Gainsborough Film Studios, on the eve of the building’s redevelopment. Almeida Opera at the Gainsborough Studios
1999 -89
Zwei Acte, Con Voci, Presentation Kagel	Direction, scenic design. Costume Tania Spooner Almeida Opera
The Golden Cockerell Rimsky-Korsakov	Direction, film design. Design: Tony Baker Lighting: Wolfgang Goebbel The Royal Opera
Maria Stuarda Donizetti	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery. Lighting, Hermann Muntzer Theater Basel
Only The Names have Been Changed I	See above, 2001. First iteration of piece subsequently staged in Munich BAC, London
Il Trovatore Verdi	Direction Design, Sigune Hamann Oper Bühnen Graz
Iphigenie en Aulide Gluck	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery Opera North
Liederkreis Schubert	Experimental video with students. Richard Jackson, Baritone Central St Martins
1998,7,6 Annual spring residency for National Opera Studio at ENO works	Exploring post-1945 and contemporary opera repertoire ENO Works
The Golden Cockerel Rimsky-Korsakov	Direction Design, Tony Baker. Lighting, Giuseppe Di Iorio. Shadow play, Teatro Gioco Vita. Teatro Dell’Opera, Roma
Cosi Fan Tutte Mozart	Direction Design, Tony Baker Welsh National Opera
The Yeomen of The Guard Gilbert and Sullivan	Direction Scenic Design, Peter J Davidson. Costume, Nicky Gillibrand Welsh National Opera, The Royal Opera, Glimmerglass
Blond Eckbert Judith Weir	Premiere of Judith Weir's opera based on a text by Ludwig Tieck Direction, film design. Design, Nigel Lowery. Lighting design, Wolfgang Goebbel 35 mm film realised by Simon Pummell. Shadow Puppetry by artists from Souhami Puppets Televised in an adapted form by Channel Four ENO
La Vera Storia Berio (also conducted)	Direction Design, Charles Edwardes BBC Symphony Orchestra, South Bank Centre
Zampa Hérold	Direction Design, Charles Edwardes Wexford Festival
Fast and Dirty	Fast collaborations as part of a large improvisatory company of practitioners, assembled by Ian Spink and Anthony Macdonald Second Stride
Mario and The Magician Stephen Oliver, after Thomas Mann’s story	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery ENO / Almeida Opera
Falstaff Verdi	Direction Design, Peter J Davison English Touring Opera
Cosi Fan Tutte Mozart	Direction Design, Anthony Baker Welsh National Opera
ENO Soundbites Short small works by Jonathan Dove, Giles Chaundy, Judith Weir	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery ENO, presented at the Almeida
The Gondoliers Gilbert and Sullivan	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery New D’Oyle Carte Opera Company, Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
Carmen Bizet	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery (after his designs for Richard Jones’ production of 1988) Opera North
L'Oca del Cairo Mozart; Stephen Oliver (completing Mozart’s unfinished work in a modern idiom)	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery Batignano Festival, Italy
Peter Grimes Britten	Direction Design, Peter, J Davidson Dublin Grand Opera Society
L'Aio nell’ Imbarazzo Donizetti	Direction Design, Peter J Davidson Batignano Festival, Italy
Hastings Spring Jonathan Dove. Libretto Nicholas Ridout	Direction Scenic design, Nigel Lowery. Costume design, Bettina Muntzer, Choreography, Melly Still Glyndebourne Education Dept
Lo Schiavo di Sua Moglie Provencale. The first Neapolitan opera, 1671	Direction Design, Nigel Lowery Batignano Festival, Italy


Agent - Jo Probitts

last update : 29 April, 2013