Salome 2024 Programme

BIOGRAPHIES
FERGUS SHEIL
CONDUCTOR
BRUNO RAVELLA
DIRECTOR
LESLIE TRAVERS
DESIGNER
CIARÁN BAGNALL
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Fergus is the founding artistic
director of Irish National Opera.
He has conducted a wide-ranging
repertoire of over 50 different
operas live, for recordings, and on
film. Highlights include Strauss’s
Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra, Rossini’s William Tell
and La Cenerentola, Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’s
Least Like The Other, half of 20 Shots of Opera, and
Beethoven’s Fidelio (Irish National Opera). He has
also conducted Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, John
Adams’s Nixon in China, Rossini’s The Barber of
Seville (Wide Open Opera), Mozart’s Don Giovanni
and the first modern performance and recording
of Robert O’Dwyer’s Irish-language opera, Eithne
(Opera Theatre Company). Abroad he has conducted
Least Like The Other in the Linbury Theatre at the
Royal Opera House, London, and William Tell for
Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, and has also conducted for
Scottish Opera and Welsh National Opera. At home
he has also conducted the National Symphony
Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster
Orchestra, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. With
the State Choir Latvija he gave the world premiere of
Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry and has also conducted
the BBC Singers. He has fulfilled engagements in
the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, the UK,
France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Malta and
Estonia. Before founding INO he led both Wide Open
Opera and Opera Theatre Company. Since 2011
he has been responsible for the production of over
seventy different operas, which have been seen
around Ireland and in London, Edinburgh, New York,
Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
Bruno Ravella is an international
opera director based in London.
Born in Casablanca, Morocco,
of Italian and Polish parents, he
studied in France and moved to
London in 1991 on graduation.
His critically acclaimed production of Massenet’s
Werther at the Opera national de Lorraine won the
Prix Claude-Rostand in 2017–18. Verdi’s Falstaff
at Garsington Opera in 2018 was nominated for the
South Bank Sky Arts Award in the opera category.
He has directed Verdi’s Rigoletto (Opera Theatre of
Saint Louis), Puccini’s La bohème (Opera di Firenze,
Italy), Offenbach’s La belle Hélène and Ravel’s L’heure
espagnole with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Opéra
national de Lorraine, France), Massenet’s Werther
(Opéra de Québec), Puccini’s Madama Butterfly,
Verdi’s Macbeth, Handel’s Agrippina, Verdi’s Falstaff
and Verdi’s La traviata (Iford Arts, UK), Handel’s
Giulio Cesare and La traviata (Stand’été, Moutier,
Switzerland), Bizet’s Carmen (Riverside Opera, UK),
Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers
and Blow’s Venus and Adonis (Les Arts Florissants),
La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers (Glyndebourne
Jerwood Project, UK), Verdi’s Stiffelio (Opéra national
du Rhin), Strauss’s Intermezzo (Garsington Opera),
and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (Garsington Opera/
Irish National Opera). He was nominated for the
Independent Opera Director Fellowship in 2015.
He has been recognised time and again for his “pinsharp
attention to detail” and ability to clearly portray
subtleties of the human condition.
Multi award-winning designer Leslie
Travers trained at the Wimbledon
School of Art‚ and is recognised as
one of the leading stage designers
of his generation. He was recently
honoured by Liverpool Institute of
the Performing Arts where he was given an honorary
doctorate, as Companion of LIPA. His current and
recent operatic projects include major designs in
many of the leading opera houses of Europe, US,
UK and beyond. His most recent ventures have
taken him to Bucharest, Santa Fe, Greek National
Opera and Opera North, where he recently designed
their Sustainable Season. Outside the opera theatre,
his most recent projects include such diverse
creations as film, a theme park, a new cruise ship,
an immersive game, and a production with NASA
to celebrate the anniversary of man walking on
the Moon.
Ciarán is a lighting and set designer
with over 25 years experience
in theatre design. He is based in
Belfast and is an associate artist with
Prime Cut Productions. He made
his Irish National Opera debut with
the set and lighting for Mozart’s The Magic Flute in
2019. His recent lighting designs include Evangelia
Rigaki’s Old Ghosts (Part of Ulysses 2.2 by ANU, Irish
National Opera, Landmark Productions and MoLI),
The Lonesome West, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The
Cripple of Inishmaan (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin); Romeo
& Juliet (Regent’s Park, London); There Are Little
Kingdoms (Town Hall Theatre, Galway); Scrapefoot
(The Ark, Dublin); The Anvil (Manchester Theatre
Festival 2019); Hamlet (Octagon Theatre, Bolton);
Pentecost (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Perseverance Drive
(Bush Theatre, London); Dido, Queen of Carthage
(RSC); Much Ado about Nothing (RSC, Stratford Upon
Avon and London West End). His recent set and lighting
designs include: Cavalcaders (Druid); X’ntigone
(MAC, Belfast/Abbey Theatre, Dublin); Rough Girls,
A Streetcar named Desire, RED, Lovers (Lyric Theatre);
The Whip (RSC); A Christmas Carol, The Great Gatsby
(Gate, Dublin); The Merchant of Venice (Great Theatre,
Shanghai); UBU The King, The Man Who Fell to Pieces,
Hard to be Soft, Lally the Scut, The God of Carnage,
Villa, Discurso, Tejas Verdes (MAC, Belfast); The Train,
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the
Somme (Abbey Theatre); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s
Globe, London); Othello (RSC); Shoot the Crow (Grand
Opera House, Belfast); Snookered (Bush Theatre,
London); The Killing of Sister George (Arts Theatre,
London); A Slight Ache and Landscape (Lyttelton
Theatre, National Theatre London).
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