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Tyrone Guthrie Suggest updates

Sir Tyrone Guthrie

Born Tunbridge Wells, 2 July 1900.

Died Newbliss, 15 May 1971.

English director.

Tyrone Guthrie was one of the most important British theatre directors of his time, having an effective role at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells, and in the early development of the Edinburgh Festival. He later had equal prominence in Canada due to his work at the festival in Stratford, Ontario. 

He began his career as an actor, and was always most noted as a director of plays, particularly Shakespeare. He was instrumental in the establishment of the successful theatre festivals at Stratford, Ontario, and at Minneapolis. Connected with the Old Vic from 1933, he became director of Sadler’s Wells Opera in 1941 and directed The Marriage of Figaro. When Joan Cross became Director of Opera, he remained director of the Vic-Wells organisation, and continued his operatic work with productions of La Bohème and La Traviata (1950). Other operas he directed for Sadler’s Wells included a highly controversial Carmen, and The Barber of Seville. At Covent Garden he directed Peter Grimes (1946), and La Traviata (1948), and at the New York Met Carmen (1952) and La Traviata (1957). Productions at Stratford, Ontario included HMS Pinafore (1960) and The Pirates of Penzance (1961).