Andy Morton

Andy Morton is a freelance performer and opera director based in Sydney, Australia, and is represented by Mollison Keightley Management. He spent the early part of his career in the UK, and arrived in Australia in 2011. Since then he has become a stalwart for Opera Australia, assisting directors on productions, reviving them and in 2018 making his directorial debut with the company, directing an international cast in La Bohème on the floating stage in Sydney Harbour. He followed that up post-Covid with a radical, critically acclaimed production of Bluebeard’s Castle at the Sydney Opera House, devised with associate Priscilla Jackman .

He first worked for the company in 2013 assisting Gale Edwards on her Joan Sutherland stage production of La Bohème, a production he has revived three times. Since then he has been a regular guest, assisting Simon Phillips on L’Elisir d’amore, Bruno Ravella on Faust, Sir David McVicar on Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, (both of which he has revived in Melbourne), and Damiano Michieletto on Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, which he also revived in Melbourne. For Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, he has assisted Gale Edwards twice more, on her Carmen and Aida, La Fura Dels Baus on Madame Butterfly, Chen Shi-Zheng on Turandot  and was at the helm in 2017 to revive Gale’s Carmen. In 2018 he worked with Simon Phillips again on a revival of his acclaimed production of Il Turco in Italia before directing Moffatt Oxenbould’s production of Madame Butterfly on OA’s inaugural tour of China. In 2019 he revived Gale Edwards’ Opera House production of Salome, with Lise Lindstrom in the title role and worked twice with Italian director Davide Livermore, first on Anna Bolena, with Ermonela Jaho and then on OA’s co-production with La Scala of Verdi’s Attila.
 

EARLY DIRECTING CAREER

He started his directing career as assistant to Francisco Negrin on King Arthur in The Hague and was subsequently a staff director at English National Opera on Manon with David McVicar, which he revived for the Royal Opera of Wallonie, and on Graham Vick’s Ariadne on Naxos . He has worked at Opera North on Marriage of Figaro and Houston Grand Opera on the world premiere of Florencia en el Amazonas with Francesca Zambello, which he subsequently revived for LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera (twice) and Cincinnati Opera. He moved to Australia in 2012 where he directed Harbour City Opera’s Suor Angelica in 2013 and subsequently established himself as a staff director with Opera Australia. He made his full directorial debut for the company with La Boheme on Sydney harbour in 2018.

PERFORMING HISTORY

Andy took a n extended break from his 20 year performing career when he arrived in Australia 30 years, before turning the clock back spectacularly by taking the role of Monsieur André in the 22/23 Cameron Mackintosh production of The Phantom of the Opera. In the UK, he was part of the creative team that devised and performed Nigel Osbourne’s Differences in Demolition for Opera Circus as well as workshops on a new opera Naciketa, to a libretto by Ariel Dorfman. He has appeared in contemporary productions for  ENO (Lost Highway), The Globe Theatre (The Burial at Thebes) and ROH (Pinnochio) and as the King in Eight Songs for a  Mad King for the Paragon Ensemble at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. For Opera della Luna, he played lead roles in HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, La Belle Hélène, Die Fledermaus and Haydn’s Il Mondo della Luna. He has also played Jean Valjean in the West End (Les Misérables), Steve Strange in Boy George’s Taboo, Martin Guerre (Martin Guerre) for Cameron MacKintosh and the original Psycho Audience in Jerry Springer the Opera. A fluent speaker of French, Spanish and Italian, Andy is now adding another string to his bow by providing brand new surtitles for Damiano Michieletto’s upcoming production of Tales of Hoffman at Sydney Opera House.