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Australian opera director Elijah Moshinsky was born to Russian Jewish parents in the French Concession of Shanghai on 8 January 1946. The family moved to Melbourne when he was five. He studied at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, where he was set designer for a stage version of The Trial by Franz Kafka, and at Oxford University, where he directed a production of Shakespeare's As You Like It and was offered a job at Covent Garden by John Tooley.
His hugely successful low budget production of Britten's Peter Grimes for Royal Opera travelled to Paris, Milan, Tokyo and Los Angeles.
He went on to produce many other operas for the UK's Royal Opera House, including Aida, Attila, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Lohengrin, Macbeth, Otello, The Rake's Progress, Samson, Samson and Delilah, Simon Boccanegra, Stiffelio and Tannhäuser.
He also directed operas at the Adelaide Festival, Buxton Festival, English National Opera, Korea National Opera, La Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Mariinsky Theatre, New York Metropolitan Opera, Novaya Opera in Moscow, Opera Australia, Scottish Opera, Welsh Opera, and in Beijing, Florence, Geneva, Los Angeles and Vienna.
Moshinsky was also well known as a theatre director, and he also made films for TV, mostly of operas, but also of Shakespeare plays.
Elijah Moshinsky died on 14 January 2021, aged seventy-five.
Classical music news - January 2021 Obituaries - Our summary of those the classical music world has lost this month
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