| Biography | John Blatchley was an actor. After winning a scholarship to RADA, he came to London and after completing his course acted in West End productions and at Stratford. He joined Glen Byam Shaw at the Old Vic School and then went to France, where he worked as both actor and director. Returning to London in 1960 he became assistant to George Devine at the Royal Court and two years later was summoned by Peter Hall to Stratford where he directed Measure for Measure.
During the next two decades Blatchley, together with Byam Shaw and on his own account, directed more than 20 operas for the company, which later moved to the London Coliseum and became the English National Opera. These operas ranged from repertory works such as Fidelio, The Marriage of Figaro, La Boheme, Tosca and Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci to (at that time) less well-known works by Janacek, Smetana and Weber. The climax to Blatchley's and Byam Shaw's joint work for Sadler's Wells/ENO was their lunar-landscape staging of Wagner's Ring, in Andrew Porter's superb English translation, conducted by Reginald Goodall, which came to fruition between January 1970 and February 1973. |