A native of Paris, the director Elsa Rooke studied literature and music at the Sorbonne and was trained as an acting coach by Alain Garichot at the École de l’Opéra de Paris. In this capacity she has taught numerous young singers, including those in William Christie’s “Jardin des Voix,” as well as those at the music academies of Lausanne and Geneva, and especially at the École de la comédie de St. Étienne. She has worked closely with Adrian Noble, the long-standing director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose productions she has staged in performances in cities from New York to Moscow. Rooke has staged productions of her own for the opera companies in Lausanne, Bordeaux, Lyon, Geneva, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, including Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Rossini’s La cenerentola, Mozart’s Idomeneo, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. Elsa Rooke is also a librettist and translator and has published novellas.

April 2017