André Heller-Lopes

One of the most active stage directors for opera in Latin America, André Heller-Lopes has directed productions in countries such as Spain, Argentina, Estonia, Uruguay, Germany, Chile, Portugal, Poland, Austria, U.K., Malaysia and all over Brazil. He trained at the prestigious San Francisco Merola Opera Program (2001) and at Covent Garden’s Young Artist Programme (2003-2005). In 2013 he received the Britten100Award and his production of A midsummer night's dream was a finalist in the best opera production category at the 2014 Opera Awards. Distinguished in 2012 by the Epoca magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in Brazil, André Heller-Lopes is a three time winner of the “Carlos Gomes Prize” (2009/2010/2011) as best opera stage director in Brazil and of the Argentinian Music Critics Association distinction for best production of the year 2015.

André Heller-Lopes’ repertoire includes a wide variety of titles, ranging from classical works (Medée, Le Nozze di Figaro, Idomeneo, La Finta Giardineira, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, Die Zauberlföte or Renaud) to major Romantic operas (Tristan und Isolde, Carmen, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Anna Bolena, La Traviata, Samson et Dalila, Eugene Oneguin, Faust, Werther) and Verismo (Andrea Chenier, Adriana Lecouvreur, Tosca, Turandot, Manon Lescaut), to modern masterpieces (Salomé, Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier, Der Zwerg, Savitri, Katya Kabanova, Vec Makropulos, Jenufa, The Cunning Little Vixen, La Voix Humaine) — all the way to cross-gender works such as Roger Water's Ça Ira or Weill’s Die Dreigroeschenoper. One André Heller-Lopes’ most important productions was the Brazilian Ring an acclaimed take on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Future and recent engagements include the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy at Wroclaw Opera in Poland, Rusalka at Auditorio de Tenerife, Die Lustige Witwe for The Estonian National Opera, Nabucco at the Teatro São Carlos in Lisbon, Faust at the Teatro Amazonas and Teatro Municipal de Santiago in Chile, Turandot at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, Trouble in Tahiti and Madama Butterfly for the Minas Filarmonica, Aida for Theater Erfurt in Germany and the Brazilian premieres of Janácek’s Katya Kabanova, The Case Makropulos. Recently, André Heller-Lopes started a collaboration with the Teatro San Carlo di Napoli as visiting stagecraft professor at their Accademia, an work he has been also doing for the JPAP at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London since 2014.