John Pascoe’s love affair with opera goes back to early childhood when he heard recordings of the tenor Mario Lanza. He first came under the spell of the soprano voice at the age of thirteen, when a school music teacher introduced him to recordings of Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland. A passion for the human voice and a profound admiration for singers and musicians has remained at the core of his work ever since.

For thirty-plus years, Pascoe has directed and/or designed productions for many of the world’s major opera houses and has been closely associated with some of the greatest names of the operatic world, including the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, the late Dame Joan Sutherland, the legendary American soprano Renée Fleming and the great tenor, conductor and administrator Plàcido Domingo. His work as both director and designer has been consistently praised for its intelligence, its unwavering sense of style and for its fidelity to both score and text.