Melbourne Opera's production of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - a talk with Opera and Theatre Director Suzanne Chaundy.

Trained at NIDA as a director, Suzanne Chaundy is Australia's foremost director of the works of Richard Wagner.

Her career spans opera, text-based theatre, special events and outdoor spectacle. Operas directed include Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, La traviata, Der Freischütz, Werther, Maria Stuarda, Tannhäuser, Anna Bolena , Our Man in Havana, Lohengrin, Roberto Devereux, Tristan und Isolde, Der fliegende Holländer, Norma, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Siegfriedand and Götterdämmerung.

Suzanne has directed for Melbourne Opera, Lyric Opera of Melbourne, West Australian Opera, Opera Australia, Victorian State Opera, IMG, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, La Mama, Anthill Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company. She is the founder and director of the Richard Divall Emerging Opera Artists Program. Suzanne directed signature productions for Australia’s internationally renowned outdoor performance troupe Strange Fruit. Her Strange Fruit productions have been presented at over 400 festivals and events in Australia, Europe, UK, Asia, Latin America and the USA.

In 2023 Suzanne completed her first Ring Cycle for Melbourne Opera in Bendigo to huge critical and audience acclaim.

Suzanne has spoken to the Wagner Society on many occasions - at the Symposium on 'Das Rheingold – Beginning with the End' (Nov 2023); via zoom about the creative ideas behind the staging of Melbourne Opera's Ring Cycle in Bendigo in 2023 (Jan 2023); and on 'Wagner on a shoestring' (Mar 2018).