Jeanne Pansard-Besson is an opera director, dramaturge and librettist. She was a finalist in the ninth European Opera-directing Prize and a semi-finalist in the Ring Award 2017. Her productions include Don Pasquale at the Nouvel Opéra Fribourg/Neue Oper Freiburg (NOF), La Tragédie de Carmen at the Royal Academy of Music in London, La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers at the Vache Baroque Festival, Hänsel und Gretel with HGO Hampstead Garden Opera in London. Upcoming productions include a revival of Orphée at the Buxton International Festival and L’Amico Fritz at the Festival de Gattières in collaboration with Opéra de Nice.
She has worked with directors such as Mariame Clément, Laurent Pelly, Simon McBurney, Irina Brook, Michael Boyd, Nicola Raab, for companies including Glyndebourne Festival, the Royal Opera House, Opéra Comique, Garsington Opera, Scottish Opera, Opéra de Lorraine, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Graz.
As a dramaturge, librettist and director she is writing and developing a new opera project, Penelope’s Web, in collaboration with composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with the support of the National Opera Studio, the APGRD and TORCH at the University of Oxford, as well as King’s College London (including workshops and performances).
The book based on her PhD in Classics from the University of Cambridge, The Imagination of Rome’s Foundation Myths, will be published by Routledge this year.
Her documentary film about a company of puppeteers in Cambodia, The Shadows of Kok Thlok, was selected by several international festivals.
She is fluent in French, English, German and Italian.
Photo: Louise Kemény.