Polly Graham

Artistic Director

​

Opera and theatre director Polly Graham read English at Trinity College, Dublin and completed an MA in Text and Performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Whilst a student she gained experience with the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival, Streetwise Opera and Le Théâtre du Soleil.

Polly spent two years as Genesis Assistant Director at Welsh National Opera mentored by David Pountney and assisting Mariusz Trelinski and Pierre Audi amongst others. She was revival director for Pountney’s production of Usher House at San Francisco Opera.

​

Her directing work for Welsh National Opera includes the UK premiere of Iain Bell’s A Christmas Carol and Unheard Voices: CREW and Maxwell Davies Kommilitonen! for Welsh National Youth Opera.Elsewhere she has directed Mr Punch and Me for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Nighthawks for Yellow Earth Theatre’s Dim Sum Nights UK Tour, Alcina with Barefoot Opera at the Arcola Theatre as part of Grimeborn Festival and Old Pye, a film co-directed with Simon Drew, for English National Opera’s Baylis programme.

​

Recent and future projects include the UK première of Karl Amadeus Hartmann Simplicius Simplicissimus for Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells; A Christmas Carol  in Trento and her WNO main stage début with Martin  Le Vin Herbé. Polly will make her Swiss début with Le Vin Herbé for Theater St Gallen in 2018.

​

Polly Graham was the recipient of the Independent Opera Director Fellowship 2016 and was featured as one of the Top 20 Talents set to take 2017 by storm in The Guardian’s Unmissable Culture 2017.