Eleanor Burke

Opera director Eleanor Burke joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2022/23 Season. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Green Opera, the first environmentally sustainable opera company.  

Burke graduated with a First-Class Degree in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge where she was also a choral scholar. She was a Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama from 2020-21, working closely with the Opera School. A trained ballet and contemporary dancer, she has expanded her interests to include fight and intimacy choreography, studying with the British Association of Dramatic Combat.   

In the 2021/22 season Burke was a staff director at Theatern Krefeld und Mönchengladbach, Germany where her revival productions have included Don Pasquale, Rusalka, Die Zauberflöte, Dialogues des Carmélites and Carmen. In the UK she has worked for Opera Holland Park, English Touring Opera, Silent Opera, British Youth Opera and Royal Academy Opera among others.    

Burke’s recent productions include the UK-premiere of Le Loup-garou (Gothic Opera), Bluebeard’s Castle (Green Opera: Grimeborn, The Asylum Chapel), The Cunning Little Vixen (Hampstead Garden Opera), Tide (Aldeburgh Festival), The Rape of Lucretia (Opera Asteria, in aid of Refuge); Isolated Incidents, a series of new operas commissioned by Green Opera; Iolanthe: a lockdown operetta (Green Opera); The Crocodile of Old Kang Pow (Tête-à-Tête), A Rose by Another Name (Marginalia Performance); Tosca (Bridgetower Ensemble), Carmen (West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge), opera scenes (London City Orchestra and DEBUT). 

 Burke made her directorial debut with The Royal Opera in the JPAP Summer Performance in July 2023. In the 2023/24 Season she directs Larmes du Couteau in the Linbury Theatre.