Celebrating the Life of a Chiswick-based Theatre and Opera Director
Ian Judge excelled in both spheres of stage production
Ian Judge
October 6, 2025
Ian Judge, acclaimed British theatre and opera director, celebrated for his wide-ranging repertoire, theatrical skill, and incisive dramatic sense, has died.
Born in Southport, Merseyside, Ian discovered an early love of theatre in productions of Peter Pan and pantomimes he saw as a child – drawing from them a childlike wonder in the magic of theatre that never left him, and informed his own theatrical productions when he became a director.
Starting his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1975, where he assisted the RSC’s then-Director, Terry Hands, Judge went on to stage his own highly-successful productions with the company, including Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and an Olivier Award-nominated Comedy of Errors.
Ian also directed plays and musicals in London, Stratford and regional theatres, including greatly-admired stagings of West Side Story, A Little Night Music, The Wizard of Oz, The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, and an Olivier-nominated production of Showboat.
In the world of opera, Ian enjoyed worldwide success, finding himself in demand across the globe for upwards of 30 years. He enjoyed long associations with the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Australia, the Mariinsky Theatre, Teatro Colón, and Los Angeles Opera (where he directed the North American premiere of Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten in 2010 — a project that revived a long-suppressed masterwork and stimulated scholarly and public interest in Schreker’s music).
In the course of an illustrious career, Ian worked with some of the major theatrical figures of our time, including Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Dorothy Tutin, Imelda Staunton, Sir John Tomlinson, Placido Domingo, Anna Netrebko, and Rolando Villazon.
Renowned off the stage for his biting wit, intellectual perspicuity, and encyclopaedic knowledge of theatre, musicals, and opera, Ian was a conversationalist in a class of his own.
A director of incomparable sensitivity, humour, style, and elegance, with a flair for powerful yet meaningful spectacle, and direction that spoke to audiences of all types and ages, Ian Judge will be mourned alike by friends and the theatrical fraternity.
Vale Ian Judge.
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