David Radok

Biography

David Radok was born in Prague. His father, Alfréd Radok, was a prominent theatre and film director. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the family emigrated to Sweden. Following a number of different theatre professions, he has been directing since 1980, mostly in Scandinavia. He has staged a number of operas, from the early Baroque to the present day. His collaboration with the Italian conductor Giancarlo Andretta began in 2003 with a production of Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen. In 1991, Radok worked for the first time in Prague, on an adaptation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which reopened the Estates Theatre after a complete refurbishment. At the National Theatre, he has also staged Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Berg’s Wozzeck. Together with Josef Kroutvor, he wrote the libretto and the play Description of a Struggle, which he also directed, at the Divadlo Na zábradlí in Prague and the GöteborgsOperan. He has collaborated with the painter and sculptor Ivan Theimer on a number of operas, including Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. In 2008, he directed the first performance of Václav Havel’s play Leaving at the Archa Theatre in Prague. As regards Janáček’s operas, he has directed Jenůfa and From the House of the Dead several times in Scandinavia. For the Janáček Brno Festival 2014, he staged The Makropulos Case with the Janáček Opera Company of the National Theatre in Brno. The project was a co-production with GöteborgsOperan, which staged it in the 2015/16 season. As a part of the co-production between the Brno Opera and the GöteborgsOperan, he directed a double bill consisting of Martinů’s Three Fragments from Juliette and Poulenc’s La voix humaine (2019). In the spring of 2015, he prepared Schönberg’s Erwartung and Bartók’s Bluebeard‘s Castle for GöteborgsOperan, followed by another double bill, made up of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Weill’s Die sieben Todsünden, for the same theatre. In 2017, he directed a modern-day revival of Vivaldi‘s Arsilda in collaboration with the Collegium 1704 orchestra. In 2020, he staged at the National Theatre in Brno the world premiere of Ivanović’s opera Monument, for which he also wrote the libretto. In 2021 he directed Britten’s Peter Grimes and in 2023 Strauss’s Salome for the National Theatre in Brno. In addition to Janáček, his favourite composers include Britten, Shostakovich, Berg, Rossini, Handel and Gluck. Outside of opera, he likes Bach and the Beatles. In his spare time, David Radok is a guitarist, artist and occasional set designer.