Director Paul Curran on Tristan und Isolde

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ARCHIVAL VIDEO OF THIS PROGRAM: https://youtu.be/Qjlbaw4QqcI            

As the premiere of the San Francisco Opera’s eagerly anticipated production of Tristan und Isolde approaches, director Paul Curran will give the Wagner Society a special preview of his staging while sharing insights into this monumental work. Wagnerians who enjoyed his previous talk with us (via Zoom) in 2021 know what an engaging and thoughtful speaker he is. This promises to be a special evening.

Paul Curran was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He played clarinet in the Glasgow Schools Orchestra and saw his first opera (Scottish Opera’s production of Wozzeck) in 1980. Moving to London, he trained as a ballet dancer at the London Studio Centre and the Central School of Ballet before studying with Sulamith Messerer. He worked for a time as an usher at English National Opera during the period when Lord Harewood, Mark Elder and David Pountney formed the artistic management of the company. He then spent two years at the ballet school of the Finnish National Opera and then three years as a professional dancer with Scottish Ballet and in Germany. A hip injury terminated his ballet career, and he worked as an interpreter and stage manager before, at the age of twenty-seven, entering the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney to study directing. Since then, he has circled the globe directing in many of the great houses including the Metropolitan, Santa Fe, Chicago, Covent Garden, La Scala, Wexford, La Fenice, and Naples. Curran also served as the General Director for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet 2007-2011.