Biography
Graham Vick, who had been represented by Groves Artists for over forty years, died at the age of 67 in July 2021.
He was the Artistic Director of Birmingham Opera Company, and worked in the world’s major opera houses with the world’s leading conductors, including Muti, Levine, Haitink, Gergiev, Runnicles, Ozawa and Mehta.
Director of Productions at Scottish Opera 1984-1987 and Glyndebourne 1994-2000, his many awards included Italy’s “Premio Abbiati” seven times, Spain’s “Premio Campoamor” and Britain’s “South Bank Show Award for Opera” in both 1999 and 2002. He was a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Honorary Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham, and was Visiting Professor of Opera Studies at Oxford University in 2002/3 and 2014/15. He was awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2009 and Honorary Membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2016.
Graham Vick directed Wagner at the Royal Opera House, Chausson in Paris, Verdi at La Scala and Vienna, Mozart at the Salzburg Festival, Monteverdi in Bologna, Schoenberg and Shostakovich at the Metropolitan Opera, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev at the Mariinsky, the Zarzuela Currovargas in Madrid and Rossini at Pesaro. His collaborations with living composers included Luciano Berio’s Un re In ascolto in London, Paris and Chicago and Outis at La Scala, Stephen Oliver’s Timon Of Athens at English National Opera, Ravi Shankar’s Ghanashyam, Jonathan Dove’s Life is a Dream and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Wednesday from Light with Birmingham Opera Company, and most recently Georg Friedrich Haas’s Morgen und Abend for the Royal Opera House. Recent projects included Haas’s Morgen und Abend and Britten’s Death in Venice in Berlin, Cavalli’s Hipermestra for Glyndebourne, Die Tote Stadt at La Scala, Semiramide in Pesaro, Parsifal in Palermo and a new commission by Giorgio Battistelli for Birmingham Opera Company.
Graham Vick’s pioneering work in Birmingham the attention of people and companies worldwide. Although a small operation, Birmingham Opera Company is now seen to be at the forefront of the modernisation of opera and a pioneer in its development as a 21st century art form.
Graham Vick was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours list.
