Siegfried
and
Götterdämmerung
Grimeborn Festival 2022
Hackney Empire, London
......Burbach's direction was clear in serving the three elements that make up this drama: Its skilfully designed sequence of contemplation, conversation and confrontation..
Bachtrack
★★★★
...Julia Burbach and her creative team deserve huge credit for steering this complex project through to a successful conclusion...
Britishtheatre
★★★★★
...illuminates the Hackney Empire...
Seen and Heard International
...A resonant conclusion...
The Stage
★★★★★
...A stupendous achievement: Grimeborne's Ring adventure comes to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion...
Planethugill
★★★★★
...Burbach's staging of both operas rarely puts a foot wrong...
musicOMH
Eugene Onegin
Opera Holland Park 2022
London, UK
La bohème
Theater Bielefeld, Germany
Season 21 /22
......Julia Burbach hat eine absolute Punktlandung hingelegt...
Die Glocke
...Die Inszenierung zeigt Hochachtung vor dem Werk als Kunstwerk...Man spielt sich an. Miteinander! Schaut sich an, versichert sich gegenseitig der Liebe zum Werk, der Liebe zum Musiktheater, Liebe zum eigenen Job...
Opernwelt
...Eine durchaus poetische Sichtweise, die Burbach dem Publikum zeigt..
Opernmagazin
Edmea
Wexford Opera Festival 2021
Ireland
Grimeborn Festival 2021
London, UK
Arcola Theatre
in collaboration with Hackney Empire
Die Walküre
......This is a remarkably plucky achievement and one has to admire the ambition to bring a bit of Bayreuth to this corner of London...
Bachtrack
★★★★
...This is a performance that will live in the memory for many years...
Londonlivinglarge
★★★★★
...Slimmed down but just as exhilarating...
The Evening Standard ★★★★
...Does Wagner compelling justice...
The Stage
★★★★
...A little miracle...Burbach had her eye on Wagner's libretto and made sure everything needed was there...the deep exploration of a family crisis with a strong philosophical underpinning...
Planethugill
★★★★
...This has much to offer superfans and plenty too for those dipping a toe into a legendary work that can be intimidating...
Broadwayworld
★★★★
L'amico Fritz
Opera Holland Park, 2021 Season
London, UK
Das Rheingold
Grimeborn Festival 2019
London, UK
NOMINATION FOR BEST OPERA PRODUCTION 2019
( OFF WEST END THEATRE AWARDS )
...Das Rheingold was an opening highlight...
The Guardian Fiona Maddocks
★★★★
...It's the unexpectedness that carries the day, plus the fact that Das Rheingold is so grippingly realised by director Julia Burbach...
Bachtrack, Mark Valencia
★★★★
...The slender forces of Orpheus Sinfonia occasionally sound like a silent cinema pit band, but the big moments still makes the floor shake...
The Evening Standard
...So Julia Burbach's boutique production was my introduction to Richard Wagner- and the baggage that always comes with that name. It won't be my last...
Broadwayworld
★★★★
...Burbach drew strong and engaging performances from her cast, and performing the piece in such an intimate space with such a cast really brought the piece to life...I
Operatoday
...this all happens just inches away from you, with absolutely no vocal or dramatic compromise...
The Spectator
Die Walküre
Opera National de Bordeaux
France -2019
The Rape of Lucretia
Grimeborn Festival 2018
London, UK
BEST OPERA PRODUCTION
( OFF WEST END THEATRE AWARDS )
In a world so sensitized to sexual politics, The Rape of Lucretia becomes still more of a conundrum. In her questioning, finely-crafted production for Grimeborn, Julia Burbach struck a bold path...and the layers of commentary by no means veiled the passions and tensions. A full-blooded performance.
Opera Magazine, Yehuda Shapiro
The Rape of Lucretia, boldly directed...first at Glyndebourne in 1946, it may have had the legendary contralto Kathleen Ferrier in the title role, but it can scarcely have been more gripping than this.
The Observer, Fiona Maddocks
★★★★
...Intense and immediate...This is low budget opera that pays high dividends - exactly what Britton wanted...
The Evening Standard
★★★★
...Taut and terrific, thanks to Julia Burbach's meticulous direction...it crackles with tension and incipient dread ...
Whatsonstage, Mark Valencia
★★★★
...It is a triumph ...Burbach, Selwyn and their team tell this story with the utmost clarity and conviction...it is difficult to imagine a more powerful production of this gripping chamber opera...
Playstosee
★★★★★
...Julia Burbach's production sheds an interesting light on the narrative, the characters and, in this case, the audience too...
Thespyinthestalls
...It is an emotional sledgehammer to the heart, to the soul and to the #MeeToo climate. Julia Burbach delivers where it matters...
Broadwayworld
★★★★
...In Julia Burbach' s astringent, pressure cooker production, the intensity never burns out...
exeuntmagazine
...Julia Burbach's production is intended to make its audience think and in that I think it succeeds...
britishtheatreguide
...It is a powerful and muscular idea...
thereviewshub
★★★
Tosca
Grimeborn Festival 2016
London, UK
Burbach, a name to watch, turned to Tosca...essentially an intimate and perceptive take on the show we all know and love...another notable innovation was the element of premeditation to the murder. Scarpia had been toying with the knife early in Act 2 and Tosca openly threatened him with it some time before concealing it in her shawl, ready for the final thrust...
Yehuda Shapiro, Opera Magazine
Madama Butterfly
Bury Court Opera
Hampshire, UK -2016
…Julia Burbach offered a double perspective by making Butterfly into a yurei-a ghost. Cio Cio San haunted the action that lead to her suicide, observing and reacting to it, but she also’ came back to life’ to participate in it…Burbach’s concept, realized with considerable expertise, worked astonishingly well, making Butterfly wiser after the event and sharpening cruel ironies…
Opera Magazine, Yehuda Shapiro
…a Butterfly of such sensitivity and insight that it scored in every possible way…
… impeccable and quite frankly masterly director, had worked wonders with establishing the unbelievably intense atmosphere that pervaded…
... She is a director whose attention to detail is second to none. You could put this Butterfly under a microscope and find nothing that was out of place, gratuitous or misjudge…pure poetry from start to finish…
Seen and Heard International,
Roderic Dunnett
…a Madama Butterfly that upstages any London production I’ve yet encountered…
…the company’s inspiring director, Julia Burbach, brought a rare control of intensity and precision. Her work with the principal duo, both Japanese, was mapped out meticulously…
Opera Now, Roderic Dunnett
★★★★★
Grimeborn Festival 2015
London, UK
Madama Butterfly
Bury Court Opera
Hampshire, UK -2014
Fairy Queen
… it requires dazzling invention to form some kind of cogent narrative…
…Julia Burbach starts with an exceptional wheeze – dangerous, unless it works. She sets the opera in a school, of the St Trinian’s era, and concocts a story full of interweavings, impassioned monologues and tentative eclogues, rearranging the set-pieces to suit. She devises ingenious vignettes, as if were off-camera…
…The motivation and precision of her cast is exceptional...
…It is a clever concept, and Burbach’s blocking mesmerising …
…filled with events, all relevant textually and emotionally…
If everything about this production is brilliant, the cast come near it too.
Artsdesk
…a dream, a rather marvellous one, is what director Julia Burbach…
…has come up with to draw these elusive strands together…
…Burbach’s manipulation of the multifaceted, inventively drilled cast … the massed chorus…at first centre stage and then ranged like watching deities above, in a kaleidoscope of beguiling blocks and rearrangings...was endlessly absorbing…
Seen and Heard International, Roderic Dunnett
Revivals
Die Frau ohne Schatten,
(Claus Guth)
Staatsoper Berlin - 2017
...unforgettable, unmissable experience...
Bachtrack
★★★★
...Already seen in Milan and in London, it now reaches Berlin...here, I think, its psychoanalytical and more broadly dramatic focus is sharper...
Seen and Heard International, Mark Berry
…the production leapt from excellence to euphoria…
…the revival by Julia Burbach may be a model of its kind…
Five-star shows are hard to define - they're not necessarily about perfection - but you know when you've seen one. This is a shoo-in.
Whatsonstage
★★★★★
Revived by Julia Burbach, Christof Loy’s staging remains sharply observed in its detail, highlighting throughout both the comedy and the psychological richness of the piece.
The Stage
★★★★
... in its fourth revival but seemed to lose none of its edge under Julia Burbach’s direction…
Mark Ronan
MusicOMH
★★★★
Ariadne auf Naxos
(Christof Loy)
Royal Opera House, London - 2015
Tristan und Isolde
(Christof Loy)
Royal Opera House, London -2014
The first act of this revival of Christof Loy’s production was simply shattering - the most potently enthralling performance I have heard in 30 years of Wagnerolatry.
The production’s strength lies in its believable characters.
The Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen
Whatsonstage, Mark Valencia ★★★★★
Backtrack ★★★★★
Evening Standard ★★★★★
Express ★★★★★
Financial Times ★★★★