Jean-Romain Vesperini studied acting at the École du Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris and singing at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he trained as a baritone.
After graduation, Jean-Romain decided to pursue a career as a director and spent several years collaborating with Luc Bondy, Peter Stein and Georges Lavaudant. During this time, he gained experience in some of the world’s leading opera houses, including La Scala, Opéra National de Paris, the Bolshoi Theatre, Opéra National in Lyon, Opéra-Comique in Paris, and at a number of opera festivals, such as Salzburg Festival and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
His directing credits include: Verdi’s La traviata (2012), his debut, at the invitation of the Rennes, Limoges and Reims opera houses, which was broadcast on French national television and radio, and which led to an invitation by these opera houses to stage a new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (2015); Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (2013) at the Théâtre du Montparnasse in Paris; Gounod’s Faust (2015) for Opéra National de Paris conducted by Michel Plasson with whom he also worked on the same opera at Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2018; a new production of Puccini’s La bohème (2018) at the Bolshoi Theatre, now part of the opera house’s repertoire; Bizet’s Carmen (2018) at Hong Kong Opera, in co-production with Le French May Festival; Puccini’s Turandot (2019) at the Ekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre; and, Benjamin Godard’s Dante (2019) at the Opéra de Saint-Etienne in co-production with Palazzetto Bru Zane.
Upcoming projects include Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Sacha Guitry’s play Quadrille and Victorin de Joncières’s Lancelot at Opéra de Saint-Etienne.
Jean-Romain was previously the Artistic Director of Les Nuits de Corte festival in Corsica which he managed in partnership with Opéra de Lyon. There he staged Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte and Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia.
In addition to his French mother tongue, the young director also speaks English, German, Italian and Russian. With his education and background, Jean-Romain is deeply musical and particularly aware of what the score brings to dramaturgy.
He is extremely grateful to have had the chance to work with great artists such as Sir Antonio Pappano, Tugan Sokhiev, Zubin Mehta, Myung-Whun Chung, Alain Altinoglu and Daniele Gatti.