Caroline Clegg
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Award winning stage director, Caroline Clegg, born in Lancashire moved to London aged 17 to study as an actor and dancer. She had a successful career in musicals, regional theatre, TV and film before completing a master's degree in music and drama at the University of Manchester and beginning a career in opera as a staff director at Welsh National Opera. Caroline is also an independent producer and CEO/Artistic Director of the award-winning company Feelgood Theatre Productions which she founded in 1994.

Her recent and forthcoming operatic work includes the premiere of Blaze of Glory for Welsh National Opera and recently completing Marilyn forever, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, The Threepenny Opera (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, RCS), and also Song of our Heartland (Opera North) with composer Will Todd and librettist Emma Jenkins and as director for Opera Quartet Gala, Teatru Manoel, Malta.

Other recent work includes director of the world premiere of Rhondda Rips it Up (WNO - nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award and an International Opera Award), Director of the UK premiere of Dead Man Walking (RCS); director and choreographer for Orfeo and Euridice (Scottish Opera Young Company); director of Romeo and Juliet (Feelgood), the double bill of Savitri and Emperor of Atlantis (RCS) and Rigoletto (Longborough Festival Opera). She was dramaturg for the world premiere of Armitage/Kaner’s Hansel and Gretel (Goldfield Productions). Previous engagements include the world premiere of Tokaido Road (Nicola Lefanu/ Cheltenham Festival) and stadium productions of Aida and Carmen (Companions Opera in Zurich and Hamburg).

Caroline has worked alongside Sir David Pountney; movement director and associate on Lulu for WNO (which she revived at Teatro Communale, Bolzano) and as revival director on Paradise Moscow (Opera North and Bregenz Festival) and Janacek's House of the Dead (WNO; the Janacek Festival in Brno, Savonlinna Opera Festival and Teatro Massimo, Sicily). Caroline has a strong association with Opera North for whom past projects include directing Something Wonderful (Sally Burgess) and as movement director on Peter Mumford’s Das Rheingold.

Other music based work includes: Errollyn Waller's Look No Hands, Il Campanello (Buxton Festival), the musical From the Hart (New End Theatre, Hampstead), the world premiere of Gorb and Kaye’s opera Anya17 (Liverpool Philharmonic/Ten Festival), and with Halle Orchestra, the award nominated staging of Seven Deadly Sins, the children’s opera Brundibar at the opening of Imperial War Museum North and the first British staging of the Shostakovich opera The Silly Little Mouse. With Manchester Camerata the world premiere of Aesop's Fables for the opening of The Bridgewater Hall.

As an independent producer and director, she has created major international events in collaboration with city councils and broadcast TV including the world wide broadcast of The Millennium Bug (BBC) and the acclaimed music theatre a capella Romeo & Juliet – Thando & Ruvhengo created in Zimbabwe as a cultural collaboration and award winning documentary for the Commonwealth Games (Manchester).

Feelgood Productions, with its diverse repertoire tours nationally, West End and internationally specialising in innovative new commissions and classics at site-specific and traditional venues in the UK, Africa and Europe. Caroline is passionate about international cross cultural and multi-disciplinary relationships particularly stimulating explorations of vocal a capella, opera, harmony, drumming and language. Feelgood's ground-breaking work has been presented to her late majesty The Queen, and in the House of Lords with the hard hitting play Slave – A Question of Freedom which won the inaugural Human Trafficking Media Award presented in the house of commons; Best New Play Award at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, and Best Director. Caroline has also won the inaugural Pete Postlethwaite Award, Best Opera and Best Production and been honoured with the Horniman award for outstanding services to live theatre, the John Thaw Fellowship at the University of Manchester and a Queens High Sherriff Award. Feelgood is now the resident company in Europe's biggest municipal park - Heaton Park.

"As a director Caroline is an individualist with great flair and a fierce passion for telling a good story in a unique way. As head of Feelgood she has her finger on the pulse and is a razor-sharp strategic producer". Robert Robson, (former Artistic Director the Lowry Theatre)

Blaze of Glory! - Welsh National Opera

Caroline Clegg’s staging unerringly hits the precise tone for scenes alternating comedy with heartache.

The Stage (February 2023)

Director Caroline Clegg achieves a strongly theatrical dynamic using stage and auditorium

The Guardian (February 2023)

Two-thirds of Rhondda’s winning creative team are back for a long-planned project only now emerging from pandemic delays. Librettist Emma Jenkins and director Caroline Clegg join forces with a new composer – David Hackbridge-Johnson – to create a theatrical hybrid that’s a little bit opera and a lot of everything else.

Telegraph (February 2023)

Laugh out loud funny. We follow the Bee Gees from first shambolic rehearsal to a triumphant performance at the National Eisteddfod.
The opera ends on a high. In the stirring final scene, with a rousing WNO Chorus and Community Chorus, finale

Times (March 2023)

The theatricality is superb and wildly inventive….This is a feel-good, nostalgic, romantic story embedded in real stories, splendidly acted and gloriously sung. It is black gold

Opera Scene (March 2023)

Blaze of Glory!, Welsh National Opera review - sparkling entertainment up the valleys
A local tale told with precision, wit and affection

This is not to play down the professional skill involved in Caroline Clegg’s production and Madeleine Boyd’s neat composite stage design, that sets the social club, the practice room and the competition tent against the same ironic backcloth of the soon-to-be-obsolete pit winding gear.

The Arts Desk (March 2023)

Opera picks of 2023 by George Hall
Blaze of Glory!
WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE, CARDIFF, AND TOURING
A new opera from Welsh National Opera on the theme of male voice choirs – an important part of Wales’ musical heritage. With the assistance of contemporary local choirs, the result was engaging, funny and surprisingly wide-ranging with broader resonances. Based on Emma Jenkins’ canny libretto, David Hackbridge Johnson’s score proved a winner, while Caroline Clegg’s staging hit the spot. Unforgettable standouts from Rebecca Evans and Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts helped make this one of the most moving operas of the year.

The Stage (December 2023)

Rhondda Rips It Up! Welsh National Opera

It’s a jolly affair, directed with imaginative gusto by Caroline Clegg...

The Telegraph (June 2018)

Smartly directed by Caroline Clegg on Lara Booth’s wood-panelled set, the burlesque never overwhelms the purpose...

The Stage (June 2018)

As befits the subject matter, WNO also ripped up the rulebook. The defiantly all-female cast and production team was directed by Caroline Clegg, with Nicola Rose conducting a 10-piece band whose lineup included accordion, tuba and drumkit, the latter recreating torpedoes hitting the Lusitania.

The Guardian (April 2019)

What japes! I grinned non-stop throughout Welsh National Opera’s inimitable Rhondda Rips it Up!... (David Poutney)commissioned an exploration of the life of the suffragette Margaret Haig Mackworth (née Thomas), the second Viscountess Rhondda. The librettist Emma Jenkins and the composer Elena Langer ran with the idea, and the result is a tremendous comic creation that deserves to be heard around the country...I defy anyone not to be swept away by this rule-breaking production. It’s bursting with irreverent joy.

The Times (June 2018)

Double Bill - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Caroline Clegg’s production, with stage designs by Finlay McLay and lighting by Davy Cunningham, places the action simply and unpretentiously in an elegant domestic drawing room, the six-piece ensemble visibly raised side-stage.

Clegg couches the action in postwar movie terms, the tragic and predominant central focus on Marilyn offset by the pseudo-vaudeville presence of The Tritones, two agile sharp-suited misfits (tenor James McIntyre and bass-baritone Ryan Garnham) with more than a hint of the sinister, who might easily be mistaken for the comedic gangsters in Kiss Me Kate.

VoxCarnyx (November 2022)

Die Dreigroschenoper - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Opera: Die Dreigroschenoper, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, four stars

THIS weekend the RSNO gives the annual Sir Alexander Gibson Memorial Concerts, and the dynamic musician who also founded professional opera production in Scotland would surely be delighted that the opera studio that also bears his name, within the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, is currently such a crucible of unmissable productions.

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill would also recognise, and approve, very many of the elements of Caroline Clegg’s vibrant staging of their 1928 masterpiece, The Threepenny Opera, conducted by RCS Head of Opera Philip White.

Scottish Herald (March 2020)

Superb ensemble from the RCS Opera Students in Die Dreigroschenoper in Glasgow.

We may more often see this ‘play with songs’ in the theatre, but bringing it into the opera house is a huge challenge for a company of very able trained singers who have to sharpen their acting skills to deliver the required bracingly savage, gritty and subversive performance. Here, music and text were in German with a very loose modern translation on supertitles from Walter Sutcliffe and RCS Opera director, and conductor Philip White. Director Caroline Clegg took an ensemble approach, her lively libertine players mingled with the audience beforehand and remained onstage throughout, when not in the action joining us as onlookers, a large mirror adding emphasis to our complicity.

The whole ensemble executed nimble stagecraft and got the nuances of the text, delivered in impeccable German as well as embracing the cabaret element of the music.

BachTrack (February 2020)

Dead Man Walking, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

...is given a terrific performance by the students of the Alexander Gibson Opera School in this cleverly-designed production by Caroline Clegg and Adrian Linford. With terrific choral work, including a posse of youngsters from the Junior Conservatoire, and a large orchestra playing its socks off for conductor James Holmes (including some stellar wind soloists), this is a major piece of work which any fans of opera – or musical theatre for that matter – should move mountains to see. There is a very profound story told here, with a great deal to say about faith, the value of truth and human society and this staging – the first full production in the UK – is top quality.

Herald Scotland (May 2019)

Director Caroline Clegg took us through the dynamic 18-scene journey simply and effectively on designer Adrian Linford's wide open fixed set making full use of mobile cell bars, all dramatically lit by Craig Stevenson. Clegg’s fluid movement of chorus and nuanced characterisation of the principals kept the momentum going.

Bachtrack (May 2019)

Under the stage direction of Caroline Clegg, and conducted by James Holmes, this student cast and orchestra give it every opportunity to shine.

The Scotsman (May 2019)

Caroline Clegg’s staging kept the narrative admirably fluent...

Opera Magazine (August 2019)

Orfeo & Euridice, Scottish Opera Youth Company

At 75 minutes running time, with a familiar subject matter (the myth of Orpheus), beautiful and undemanding music, inventive design and execution, this is an ideal introduction to opera. Not only is it an impeccably staged and delivered production, the Young Company shows hope for the future of opera in Scotland.

Glasgow Theatre Blog (April 2019)

This allusion, deliberate or otherwise, was only one of the impressive and inspired aspects in this production. If any theatre company wanted a lesson in how to make their work look spectacular, while making a little go a long way, then they need look no further...The inventive staging used this to full advantage, breaking the fourth wall by forcing the audience to become part of the performance, made aware of their own presence as blurred faces on the stage.
The other key to audience engagement was the pace that the story unfolds. There was little scene setting as wedding day quickly turns to tragedy before Orfeo begins his heroic journey to rescue Euridice. Although there were nominally three acts the storytelling felt seamless – told as concisely and precisely as possible...It was easy to forget, and indeed I didn’t give it a thought throughout, that this was the Scottish Opera Young Company on stage, and that tells you all you need to know. Suffice to say, it appears that the future of Scottish Opera is in safe hands

Scots Whay Hae (April 2019)

Caroline Clegg’s seductive, evocative staging was bathed in a mirage of blues ad purples (lighting was by Roy Herd) and brought into focus by Finlay McLay’s silhouetted set and modern-mythical costumes. For the ‘happy end’, Clegg decorated the stage with discreet snapshots of modern-day poster couples (JFK and Jackie, Richard and Judy etc.), driving home the chasm between our own realist and that of Gluck’s neo-Classical ideal.

Opera Magazine (June 2019)

Savitri/The Emporer of Atlantis. Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Caroline Clegg’s superb production...

The Herald Scotland (January 2018)

The sets, although simple, were very effective and the staging was excellent and the music superb.

The wee review (January 2018)

Director Caroline Clegg chose to play out the action in a deserted theatre...The Emperor of Atlantis is supposed to be edgy and disturbing, and this production captured the unsettling parallels perfectly, allowing us to take our own conclusions away.

Bachtrack (January 2018)

Seven Deadly Sins - Halle Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder

An eccentric programme of music centred on the early years of the 20th century went down a storm at the Bridgewater Hall...The semi-staged performance, directed by Caroline Clegg, was an impressive success...The drama was striking from early on: little was held in reserve...It was a strong piece of drama, very successfully pulled off on the concert stage to the credit of all involved.

BachTrack (April 2014)

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Feelgood Theatre (Heaton Park & Hall)

Ingenius ... A triumphant return for Feelgood and a tantalising promise of great things to come in the park!

Northern Soul (July 2017)

Dracula - The Blood Count, Feelgood Theatre

Clegg’s production excels in long shot - it’s pretty good in close-up as well!

The Guardian (August 2005)

...one of the best productions I have seen in the last decade and I don’t make comments like that lightly… if you see nothing else this year, see this.

The Messenger (August 2005)

18th July, 2024

Liverpool Oratorio