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Born in Oxford in 1947, David Pountney and was educated at Cambridge. It was a production of Janacek’s opera Katya Kabanova for the 1972 Wexford Festival that first brought his work as an opera director to world attention.   From 1975 to 1980 he was Director of Production for Scottish Opera where, in collaboration with Welsh National Opera, his productions featured a Janacek cycle of various operas by the Czech composer.

He produced the world première of David Blake's Toussaint at English National Opera and went on to become Director of Productions there in 1980, directing over twenty operas in that house. As a freelance Director from 1992 he has worked regularly in many of Europe’s leading opera houses, as well as in America and Japan. Since 2003 he has been the Artistic director of the Bregenz Festival.

In this week’s Inspired Minds, David Pountney talks to Breandáin O’Shea about his early days of directing, his approach to directing a Wagner opera and his strong misgivings about surtitles.