Rodula Gaitanou is an Athens-born, Paris-trained, London-based opera director working internationally across Europe, Australia and the United States. Her work is defined by its psychological rigour and strong visual dramaturgy, creating productions that are both musically exacting and theatrically immediate.
Recent highlights include a new production of La forza del destino at the Greek National Opera, nominated for Best Production at the 2025 International Opera Awards, alongside La bohème at Malmö Opera, The Turn of the Screw at Spoleto Festival USA. She made her US debut with Carmen at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and has directed Vanessa for the Spoleto Festival and Wexford Festival Opera.
Her work has been presented at leading houses and festivals including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Gothenburg Opera, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, Opéra Royal de Wallonie–Liège, Opera North, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Malmö Opera, Estonian National Opera, Opera Hedeland and Minnesota Opera. Recent productions include La traviata, Nabucco, Rusalka, Aida, Andrea Chénier, Madama Butterfly, Ariadne auf Naxos, La clemenza di Tito, and La fanciulla del West the latter nominated for Best Opera Production at the CPH Awards.
In the 2025-26 season she directed Roméo et Juliette for State Opera South Australia in Adelaide and West Australian Opera in Perth, makes her Canadian debut directing Siegfried for Edmonton Opera, directs a new Tosca for Opera Hedeland in Denmark and revives her productions of Nabucco for Savonlinna Opera Festival and Un ballo in maschera for Opera Holland Park. Upcoming projects for the 2026-27 season include Death in Venice at Teatro Grande di Brescia and Capriccio at Opéra Royal de Wallonie–Liège, Andrea Chénier at Savolinna, as well as a revival of Roméo et Juliette at West Australia Opera in Perth..
Gaitanou was nominated for Best Director at the International Opera Awards in 2019 and is a recipient of the ARGO Award for services to Arts and Culture presented to exceptional members of the Hellenic Diaspora. She trained in Paris at La Sorbonne, at Université Paris 8 and at the International Theatre School Jacques Lecoq following initial studies as a violinist at the Mousikoi Orizontes Conservatory in Athens. She is an alumna of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
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Death in Venice
Teatro Grande Brescia, September 2026
In Rodula Gaitanou's direction, we find the restraint and elegance we appreciated in her debut at the Teatro Grande three years ago with Madama Butterfly . The Greek director approaches Britten's masterpiece by avoiding both the more predictable references to Visconti's celebrated film and a purely illustrative reading of Mann's tale. Hers is above all an exploration of Aschenbach's tormented soul, the progressive dissolution of his certainties, the conflict between reason and desire. Reality, the protagonist's perception, and his reflection on what is happening coexist in a suspended scenic dimension, in which the boundaries between the external and internal worlds become increasingly uncertain.
Connessi all'Opera
The production signed by Rodula Gaitanou is extraordinary. Working with a modest budget, she manages to demonstrate that budget is irrelevant when every available resource is used effectively and, above all, when art, interpretation, and the performers’ talent are given priority. The visual concept is as simple as it is brilliant: a dark and gloomy stage, exactly like Mann’s Venice. A handful of elements: a chair, clocks, a barber’s chair, an office desk, or a few gondola oars; reinforce the visual impact and place the action precisely where it needs to be. Every element is visually striking and meaningful, not least the costumes, inspired by the way people dressed at the beginning of the last century.
Opera Wire
To make a work of refined beauty accessible, yet wrapped up in the protagonist's cerebral soliloquies, dynamic and, when necessary, spectacular, direction was needed, and Rodula Gaitanou did not shy away from it. Constantly transforming the theatrical space with the use of a tulle screen/door, balancing Dick Straker's essential videos, enhancing sets and costumes by Takis, and skilfully directing the movements of a rich supporting cast, she fashioned a multifaceted Venice, liquid and sunny, foggy and chaotic, rendered at times resplendent, at times sickly and treacherous by Fiammetta Baldisseri's lighting, with the water reflecting the protagonist's constant mood swings.
Giornale di Brescia
Rodula Gaitanou's direction... doesn't attempt to reconstruct Venice in a naturalistic manner, and rightly so. Takis' sets use few elements, continually recomposed, while Dick Straker's images intervene to modify the perception of spaces. The result is a shifting environment, in which the real place seems to gradually take on the appearance of a mental landscape.
The direction focuses on Aschenbach with particular attention, yet avoids making him a constantly isolated presence from the rest of the scene. A crowded, cosmopolitan city continues to exist around him: tourists, waiters, vendors, families, gondoliers. It is precisely this normality, contrasted with the protagonist's progressive disorientation, that makes his loneliness more evident. The world doesn't really change; it's our character's perspective that does.
Opera Click
Director Rodula Gaitanou chooses to use large panels constantly moved by Dick Straker 's videos. The world evoked, also thanks to Takis' sets and costumes, is that of a dreamlike, undefined, and hazy Venice, in the protagonists' minds, a sort of lucid nightmare in which the characters move like ghosts. We appreciated the ability to evoke the many locations in the libretto with quick, functional scene changes that effectively depict each setting with just a few elements. The idea of not exploiting a traditional, touristy iconography of Venice, but rather reducing it to just a few Gothic buildings and water, its natural and fundamental element, is also a good one.
A must-see show, a title that's not easy to stage; kudos to this courageous and unexpected choice, which manages to make Mann's ambiguity visible without simplifying it.
Opera Libera
Rodula Gaitanou's ingenious and poetic staging offers a faithful, yet not merely illustrative, interpretation of Mann's novella. The Greek director masterfully conveys the atmosphere and, above all, the protagonist's fluctuating moods, mirroring the poetic depictions of Venice in Dick Straker's videos . These videos recreate, in turn, the waters of the lagoon, the trefoil columns of Venetian palaces, and the bridges spanning a canal, as well as the writer's bedroom and the Lido beach.
A masterful achievement and an evening to remember.
ClassicNews
Romeo et Juliette
State Opera South Australia, October 2025
This moment adverts both to gang violence and to war and its consequences for future generations, and director Rodula Gaitanou brilliantly thrusts Shakespeare’s story into the contemporary world...Gaitanou’s inspired direction renews Gounod’s conception of Shakespeare’s play...This outstanding co-production by State Opera South Australia, West Australian Opera and Irish National Opera is a compelling and thought-provoking piece of theatre – a must-see.
Chris Reid, Limelight
Director Rodula Gaitanou has taken Gounod’s distillation of Shakespeare’s play and imagined it as a love story that transcends time and space...this production imagines a lavish retelling. Everything about the performance is superb. From the costumes, the wigs, the lighting, the stage set, the chorus, the orchestra, the voices, everything comes together to create a sumptuous feast for the senses.
John Goodridge, The AU Review
From her training with École Jacques Lecoq, director Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the notion of “suspended space” and how a theatrical space is charged by human rhythm to become a living space [...] Gaitanou uses with great effect the raising of the individual guns of the Montagues and Capulets
Russell Fewster, The Conversation
The tension is already high, like Bernstein in West Side Story, and one wonders if this production by the Greek-born, French-trained director Rodula Gaitanou will quickly descend into a bloodbath even before the Overture is finished...this production really sets the cat among the pigeons, though, is how it subverts realism through freewheeling fantasy...Gaitanou has concocted what may be one of the zaniest costume parties ever staged. Putting their pistols aside, the Capulets are now adorned in frilly skirts, boas and feathers – men and women.
Graham Strahle, IN DAILY
Under the direction of Rodula Gaitanou, these themes are more than explored, they are fleshed out. Gaitanou has abandoned the traditional ‘stand and sing’ of opera and replaced it with genuine emotion that tugs at our heart strings...Her characters are real, the love is real as is the hatred. We feel for the characters and their doomed plight. Will the feuding families find common ground after the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet? We may never know, but this version gives us hope for the future...There is one word that perfectly sums up Romeo et Juliette by State Opera South Australia, and that word is sublime! If you haven’t bought a ticket yet, I urge you to do so quickly, it is a stunning production!
Barry Hill, Stage Whispers
La bohème
Malmö Opera, March 2025
"good observations on the human nature of desperate artists"
"theatrically astute"
Andrew Mellor, Opera Magazine
La Traviata: Opera Holland Park
21/07/2025
“OHP at its world-class best...the return of Rodula Gaitanou’s production, under the baton of Matthew Kofi Waldren, suggests that these two creatives have scrutinised the libretto and score anew to explore further meanings."
George Hall, The Stage
Puccini: La Boheme
Malmö Opera, March 2025
"A performance that deserved to fill the hall all day long. Skånskans opera critic Lars-Erik Larsson gives the highest marks to Malmö Opera and director Rodula Gaitanou's production of "La bohème"...
Malmö Opera's production of "La bohème", which premiered on Saturday, must be said to be the optimal opera performance. A well-known and beloved work, a consistent and high-class singing team, elaborate set design and costumes. Plus lots of "extra goodies". It was packed at the premiere and it deserves to be seen by packed houses the entire time it is being performed...
We can only continue with the praise: The direction was perfect. Each individual got their own special character and the crowd was truly a crowd. It was a performance in the best spoken theater style where the plot gripped the audience, something you don't see in most opera performances."
Lars-Erik Larsson, Skanska Dagbladet
"a nostalgic and emotionally charged La bohème"
Kristina Lindquist, Dagens Nyheter
"At Malmö Opera, the London-based director Rodula Gaitanou has chosen to move the action from 1830s Paris to 1960s Manhattan, where Andy Warhol is exhibiting at the cool Momus gallery. Yes, why not?... The musically close direction creates close contact between the notes and the acting. That the production so clearly, and so early, allows music to break a deadlock also becomes a hint of what it is that we in the audience are going to experience... Puccini's harmony and large-scale rhythm, Cordelia Chisholm's acoustically grateful scenography and Rodula Gaitanou's placement of the singers in these rooms create the conditions for the catharsis that the singers will now achieve. This catharsis is the very point of “La bohème”, and when it comes, it no longer matters where or when the opera takes place. What happens, happens here and now. A room opens up where everything is both enigmatic and different. You want to laugh and cry and say that yes, yes, that’s exactly how it is!"
Tobias Lund, Scen
"Bohemians have been frozen throughout time. But the magnificent production of La Bohème at Malmö Opera warms. YA's reviewer is impressed:
....the enormous width of the main stage has been used quite ingeniously in the scene's intersection of studios and galleries with a lot of space to fill, as if floating above a brick wall. A place for meetings, longing, pain, the territory of the opera. And of youth!"
Mattias Gejrot, Ystads Allehanda
La Forza del Destino
Greek National Opera, January 2025
“In Rodula Gaitanou’s new production, one of the most compelling I’ve seen of this challenging work, that overture was accompanied by black-and-white video (Dick Straker) showing clerics wrenching children away from a figure who turned out to be their maid, Curra. Set on a bleak seashore, the videos continued to slowly evolve in Bill Viola fashion between the scenes all evening, with the children growing up as Leonora and Carlo and eventually ageing. As the curtain went up on Act 1 it was revealed that the chief protagonist among those clerics had been Calatrava himself, the children’s father (despite being identified in Gaitanou’s synopsis as Cardinal Calatrava). Where most of the scenes had a outdoor, if nocturnal, feel, Calatrava’s home was a claustrophobic bunker and he was armed with a pistol— picked up and accidentally discharged by Leonora’s little brother, Carlo....
The busy stage was brilliantly directed by Gaitanou, with details that really seemed to matter even when they might have surprised Verdi…”
John Allison, Opera Magazine
Verdi: Nabucco
Savolinna Opera Festival, July 2024
With its Greek authors, director Rodula Gaitanou and stage director
Takisin - a stage name and one spelt with a lower case initial - the Babylonian opera has found a whole new point of view. The performance as an interpretation, visual and stage events as a whole is 'poor' theater at its finest. The staging, made from recycled bottles, is stunningly well done. Nabucco in full scale is a treat for all the senses. Without compromising ideas.
Anne Välinoro, Rondo
I dare to predict: this summer's new production of the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Nabucco, will be the new Aida - the 80s version that everyone around Finland was almost ecstatic to see again and again.
The Greek pair Rodula Gaitanou and takis have been working together for a long time [...] because they think along the same lines. They both also want to say something weighty, not just illustrate old works.
Director Rodula Gaitanou uses the choir with skill. The 80 or so singers transform themselves into a group of eco-warriors, sometimes cheering each other on, sometimes forming a familiar chain, sometimes smiling with determination, sometimes into senior, sputtering technocrats.
The audience fell in love with the new production right away. The applause continued for a long time. The whole is harmonious and extraordinarily beautiful, and not only that. The theme of this interpretation, saving nature, is also true on stage. Now we don't just talk beautifully in theory, we do what we talk about.
Eastern Savo
Director Rodula Gaitanou and choreographer Lauren Poulton bring an entertainingly caricatured grandfatherly energy to the technocrats portrayed by the chorus, using proverbial aids as interpretive tools - the various walking sticks and canes that rich old people use to hobble away.
Samuil Tiikkaya, Helsinkin Sanomat
La Bohème
Minnesota Opera (May 2024)
The incarnation that opened Saturday night at St. Paul’s Ordway Music Theatre is the most entertaining and energetic “La Bohème” among the half-dozen I’ve experienced, and quite possibly the most well sung, as well. Boasting a very creative design scheme and performers throwing themselves into their roles enough to inspire tears both onstage and in the house, it’s a production ideal for audience of all experience levels.
… Director Rodula Gaitnaou has clearly convinced her cast to tap into their sense of fun, for these “bohemians” are a lighthearted lot, laughing at life and giving the impression that they’d be in a celebratory mood even if our story didn’t begin on Christmas Eve. … The audience is treated to the most vibrant Parisian street scene I’ve found in a “La Bohème”. There’s a little subplot going on in every direction you look, even as our eyes and ears are drawn to the cauldron of desire and jealousy brewing between Rodolfo’s painter pal Marcello and the proudly promiscuous Musetta.
Rob Hubbard, Star Tribune
Giacomo Puccini’s triumphant opera, La bohème has finally returned to the MN Opera in a beautifully staged production…
Broadway World
An overall incredible production
Lavender Magazine
Rusalka
Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège (January 2024)
The first key to this success is the particularly successful production of Rodula Gaitanou. An ingenious device allows a clear visualization of the different spaces: a large ring marks the dividing line between the worlds, while silver curtains separate humans from aquatic creatures. In the garden, an elegant ornate iron spiral staircase also allows the characters to evolve vertically. The staging, already very beautiful, is completed by superb costumes and, in Act I, by videos evoking the undulating surface of the water, through which an immense moon shines through. Under its light, the undines twirl in their flowing outfits, the three singers mingling with the dancers to illustrate the bubbling of the waves.
Julia Le Brun, Diapason
A real staging challenge, the versatility of the underwater movements requires a certain amount of magic. Director, Rodula Gaitanou confronts this scenic tour de force with a symbolist and poetic décor. … Generous, powerful and evocative, this Rusalka received a deserved ovation from the Liège public, always so receptive.
Soline Heurtebise, Olyrix
Antonín Dvořák’s most important operatic work finally enters the repertoire at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, where strangely Rusalka had never been performed, and it does so with a much-applauded new production by the Greek director Rodula Gaitanou.
Alma Torretta, Il Giornale della Musica
Rodula Gaitanou has created a very wise production at the Royal Opera of Wallonia-Liège which makes the undine Rusalka the heroine of an austere and symbolist fable.
David Verdier, Altamusica
Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák created in Prague in 1901 had never before been performed at the Opéra de Wallonie-Liège. It is now done, and done well. … It must be said that Rodula Gaitanou’s staging enriches the tale with its scenic images. Beautiful image, relevant and coherent. … The Rusalka enchanted and rejoiced with her tragedy. It is a success.
Stéphane Gilbart, Crescendo
Andrea Chénier, St Gallen
June 2023
The performance of Greek director Rodula Gaitanou is captivating. She manages to clearly structure the opera … with its labyrinthine storylines. … The four acts flow smoothly into each other, sometimes with a single solo performance, sometimes with all the singers and extras. The tempo changes and the color changes of the costumes are part of it as dramaturgical impulses. The piece does not sway back and forth, but develops grippingly towards the finale … The Hatchet falls. Silence in the monastery courtyard. Then warm applause and a standing ovation
Alex Bänninger, Journal21.ch
Since the eponymous hero and numerous other opera characters actually lived, it is only right that director Rodula Gaitanou brings to the stage in her all-round successful production exactly what Uberto Giordano and his librettist Luigi Illica specify in score and libretto.
Marco Aranowicz, Operagazet
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