Directing

Jonathan Kent

Born 1949-06-19 · Lewisham, London, England, UK

Jonathan Kent CBE (born 1949) is an English theatre director and opera director. He is known as a director/producer alongside Ian McDiarmid at the Almeida Theatre from 1990 to 2002. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in February 2016 for his services to the performing arts. Kent was born in England to architect parents. They moved to Cape Town, South Africa, when Kent was one year old. He went to school at Diocesan College, Rondebosch, where he appeared as King Lear in the school play in 1964. He originally thought of taking up the profession of painter, but returned to England to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in the 1970s. After completing his drama education, he joined the repertory company Glasgow Citizens Theatre in Scotland By 1990 Kent had formed an association with the Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid, and between 1990 and 2002 as joint artistic directors, they turned the Almeida into a major producing theatre. The success of this venture—presenting a wide range of international plays—led to 14 plays produced under Kent's tenure being transferred to the West End and also to Broadway. His productions for the Almeida included When We Dead Awaken; All for Love; Medea (also West End/Broadway); Chatsky; The Showman; The School for Wives; Gangster No 1; Tartuffe; The Life of Galileo; The Rules of the Game; Ivanov (also in Moscow); The Government Inspector; Naked (also West End); The Tempest; Hamlet (also Broadway); Richard II; Coriolanus (also New York/Tokyo); Phèdre; Britannicus (also West End/New York); Plenty(West End); Lulu (also Washington); Platonov and King Lear.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Long Day's Journey into Night poster
10.0

Over the course of a day, a married couple, Mary and James Tyrone, and their two sons, Jamie and Edmund, grapple with Mary's morphine addiction and confront each other over the past in a series of emotionally tense and volatile exchanges.

Long Day's Journey into Night

2025

Gypsy poster
7.8

Gypsy's mother Rose dreams of a life in show business for her daughters, but Louise becomes a huge burlesque star. Stage musical loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Gypsy

2015

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street poster
NR

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2012

National Theatre Live: The Seagull poster
NR

On a summer's day in a makeshift theatre by a lake, Konstantin's cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever. Chekhov's masterly meditation on how the old takes revenge on the young is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage. Adapted by David Hare whose stage plays include Skylight, Pravada, and screenplays include The Hours and The Reader, directed by Jonathan Kent (Gypsy, Private Lives).

National Theatre Live: The Seagull

2016

Royal Opera House: Tosca poster
NR

The painter Mario Cavaradossi helps a fugitive escape – and so attracts the attention of Scarpia, the sadistic Chief of Police. Scarpia captures Cavaradossi and has him tortured within earshot of his lover, the singer Tosca. Scarpia sentences Cavaradossi to death – but promises Tosca that her lover can be saved if she gives herself to Scarpia. Tosca consents but as soon as the order has been given kills Scarpia. Scarpia’s menace continues even in death: betrayed by a double-cross, Cavaradossi dies and Tosca leaps to her death.

Royal Opera House: Tosca

2018

Royal Opera House: Tosca poster
9.0

The star singers in this revival of the 2006 production were Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel; the Royal Opera Chorus and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House were under the baton of Antonio Pappano, the Music Director of the Royal Opera House. The pageantry of church ritual, the darkness of a brooding study with its hidden torture chamber and the false optimism of the light of a Roman dawn - all throw into relief the love of the beautiful diva Tosca, the idealism of her lover Cavaradossi and the deadly, destructive obsession of the malevolent Chief of Police, Scarpia. Drama, passion and fabulous music.

Royal Opera House: Tosca

2011

Puccini Manon Lescaut poster
10.0

The French tale of a beautiful young woman destroyed by her conflicting needs for love and luxury.

Puccini Manon Lescaut

2015

Manon Lescaut poster
10.0

In June 2014, London’s Royal Opera House presented Jonathan Kent’s new production of Manon Lescaut. With a stellar cast, including Kristīne Opolais and Jonas Kaufmann in the roles of the young lovers Manon Lescaut and Chevalier des Grieux, Jonathan Kent brings this 19th century classic to a 2014 setting, both non-naturalistic and theatrical. Supporting the action on stage is the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with their venerable Music Director Antonio Pappano.

Manon Lescaut

2014

Manon Lescaut poster
NR

"Manon Lescaut is a heroine I believe in," wrote Giacomo Puccini to his publisher Giulio Ricordi. Experience Puccini's third opera and first big success in Götz Friedrich's landmark 1983 production at the Royal Opera House. The extraordinary Plácido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa take on the roles of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut, accompanied by the Royal Opera House Choir and Orchestra under the direction of Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Manon Lescaut

2016

Mozart's Don Giovanni - Glyndebourne Festival 2010 poster
NR

Mozart's second collaboration with the mercurial librettist Lorenzo da Ponte is among the very blackest of black comedies. Glyndebourne welcomes back the winning team of director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown, while the music is conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. In the title role, the bass-baritone Gerald Finley, joined by Luca Pisaroni, Kate Royal and the young Russian soprano Anna Samuil.

Mozart's Don Giovanni - Glyndebourne Festival 2010

2010

Die Frau ohne Schatten poster
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In October 2013, the Mariinsky label releases a DVD & Blu-ray of Strauss most Wagnerian of operas, Die Frau ohne Schatten. Filmed in the historic Mariinsky Theatre in 2011, it stars Russian tenor Avgust Amonov as The Emperor, Mlada Khudoley as The Empress, Olga Savova as The Nurse, and is conducted by Valery Gergiev. The Mariinsky Theatre is one of the few opera houses capable of staging Die Frau ohne Schatten, due to the demanding soloist roles, elaborate sets and large orchestral forces required. This epic production, premiered in 2009, is a collaboration between two British artists, director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown, and has become a regular fixture in the opera company s schedule.

Die Frau ohne Schatten

2013

The Turn of the Screw poster
NR

A remote English country house, and old and faithful housekeeper, two young orphan children and an eager new governess sent down from London to look after them. But all is not quite as it seems in the sheltered world of Bly. Britten's brilliantly scored, insidiously compelling adaptation of Henry James's novella takes its themes of of childish innocence and adult corruption, then twists and turns them to disturbing and ultimately devastating effect.

The Turn of the Screw

2011