John Savournin has created productions both as Artistic Director of Charles Court Opera, and as a freelance director, devisor, and writer, working primarily in Opera and Musical Theatre.  He was a finalist in the ‘Rising Talent’ category at the International Opera Awards 2022 for his directing work, and his current engagements include directing new productions of The Merry Widow, for which he has also written the script for a new translation, and Trial by Jury, both for Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park in 2025, and reviving CCO’s The Magic Flute at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Recent engagements include The Yeoman of the Guard for OHP/CCO this summer, the children’s opera Dewi in the Deep at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in a co-production with RBO, CCO and The Opera Story, reviving his Whistle stop operas surrounding Cinderella and The Cunning Little Vixen for Opera North, CCO productions of The Barber of Seville and The Sorcerer both at Wilton’s Music Hall and Odyssey - a heroic pantomime for CCO and Jermyn Street Theatre. He is passionate about the next generation and has written and/or directed many outreach projects of the Royal Opera, Opera North, OHP, the Concordia Foundation and for CBBC.

Opera engagements have included HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and Ruddigore, all co-productions between Opera Holland Park and CCO, Trial by Jury for Opera North, as part of the company’s season of Little Greats, the Spring 2022 Opera Highlights Tour for Scottish Opera, The Barber of Seville for CCO at Wilton’s Music Hall, a staging of Benjamin Britten’s Songs and Proverbs of William Blake for English Touring Opera (lost to the pandemic).  Four of his CCO productions have won “Best Production” awards at the Off West End awards, including Patience at Wilton’s Music Hall and Odyssey: a heroic panto, in a co-production with Jermyn Street Theatre, which he also penned the script for.

Recent engagements have also included the G & S Walking Tour for English National Opera, part of Westminster City Council’s Inside Out Festival, The Mikado for Charles Court Opera at If Opera, creating a new radio series entitled Open Up the Opera House, with CBBC presenter Chris Jarvis – a project supported by Arts Council England and the Concordia Foundation, directing Opera Scenes for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal College of Music.  His CCO production of Patience, selected by Opera Now as ‘The Pick of The Fringe,’ was also selected as ‘Best Opera of 2022’ by The Arts Desk.

During Autumn 2020, he directed three films: Grief, a new short opera by Amanda Holden and Nils Holger-Peterson for Opera Harmony, available on Opera Vision; Whistle-stop Opera – Cinderella for Opera North; and CCO’s online pantomime, Snow White in the Seven Months of Lockdown.

He has created Opera North’s series of Whistle Stop Operas to date, including The Mini Magic Flute, which was commissioned for the CBBC, and What is Opera? which aired on the BBC’s Opera Passion series.  He has written several opera adaptations for the Royal Opera’s Opera Dots series and directed an adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance for OHP’s ‘Inspire’ programme.

For the Concordia Foundation, he wrote and directed original musical works for performances linked to and involving schools in London, including The Man in the Moon – there’s no Planet B? which focussed on climate change and recycling.

John Savournin founded Charles Court Opera in 2005.  His productions for the company have included Patience, Express G&S, Iolanthe, The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, Ruddigore, The Turn of the Screw, Noye’s Fludde, Cosi fan Tutte, Tosca, La bohème, pantomimes including Beowulf – An Epic Panto; Buttons: A Cinderella Pantomime, King Tut – An Egypt Panto, Rumpelstiltskin and both The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville for co-productions with Iford Arts.  He has written/directed CCO’s pantomimes to date, and directed an evening entitled Avant-Garde including Schoenberg’s Pierre Lunaire, Peter Maxwell-Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King and a series of Beckett shorts.  Most recently for CCO, he has directed Odyssey: A heroic pantomime and Napololeon: un petit pantomime, both in collaboration with the West End’s Jermyn Street Theatre, The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville, both at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Elsewhere, John has directed a rare revival of Sondheim and Rogers’ musical Do I Hear a Waltz? at the Park Theatre in London; Tosca and Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Musique Cordiale Festival in the South of France; Handel’s Giulio Cesare for Trinity College of Music at the Blackheath Halls.