Agathe Mélinand enjoys a successful career as director, dramaturg and librettist, in both opera and the theatre.  She is currently Co-Director of Théâtre National de Toulouse.  From 1997-2007 she was Deputy Artistic Director and Director of Communication of the Centre Dramatique National des Alpes (CDNA) in Grenoble and prior to that (1989–1994) Co-Director of theatre company Le Pélican.   Recent highlights in Toulouse have included Carlo Goldini’s Le Menteur, for which she wrote a new translation from the original Italian, a staged recital of songs by Michel Legrand, featuring Natalie Dessay, Monsieur le Six, and most recently Les Aventures de Sinbad le Marin (with Laurent Pelly).  Plans this season include Tennessee Williams – Short Stories, which she has written and will also direct.

Agathe works in the opera house as both librettist and dramaturg and has been responsible for the production of new dialogues from the original language in French, Italian and English.  Recent work has included the writing of new dialogues for Laurent Pelly’s acclaimed production of Donzietti’s La fille du régiment (co-production Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, New York, Vienna State Opera), and new versions of Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne (Opéra de Lyon) and Les contes d’Hoffmann (Lausanne Opera).  She produced a new adaptation of the dialogues for Théâtre du Châtelet’s highly-successful production of La belle Hélène, as well as a new translation of these for Santa Fe Opera. 

In addition she has written a new version of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui for Opéra de Lyon, which has enjoyed recent revivals in Lyon and at l’Opéra Comique in Paris. Other adaptations include La Périchole (Marseille Opera), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein for the Minkowski-Pelly production at Théâtre du Châtelet, Orphée aux enfers (Geneva Opera and Opéra de Lyon) and an Offenbach triple bill, also for Opéra de Lyon.  She also established a new version of Le Chanteur de Mexico libretto for Théâtre du Châtelet. 

Other productions on which Agathe has worked as dramaturg (usually in collaboration with Laurent Pelly) include  Rameau’s Platée, Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and a double-bill of Ravel’s L'heure espagnole and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi for the L’Opéra national de Paris; Rameau’s Les Boréades (Lyon and Zurich); Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel for Glyndebourne Festival Opera , Mozart’s La finta semplice for Theater an der Wien and Handel’s Giulio Cesare for L’Opéra national de Paris.

Current projects include Massenet’s Manon, a co-production between the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera New York, Teatro all Scala  Milan and Toulouse Opera, as well as a rework of her Les contes d’Hoffmann and revivals of La fille du régiment in Paris, San Francisco and Barcelona.

Agathe began her career as a comedienne, but moved to the other side of the stage in 1986, when she became press attaché and programming assistant at Printemps du théâtre à Paris, directed by Stéphane Lissner.  She subsequently formed her own press services company 10bis, providing freelance press services to organisations and cinema producers such as Christiane Pascal, John McNaughton, Jean-Philippe Toussaint.  In addition, she has organised several retrospectives on the history of the seventh art, including Mozart à L’écran, Littérature et cinema on 150 fims, Brigitte Bardot-Images d’un Mythe. 

May 2013