Sir David McVicar made his Royal Opera House debut in 2001 directing the Kirov Opera’s production of Macbeth, and made his Royal Opera debut the same year directing Rigoletto.

His productions there have subsequently included The Magic Flute, Faust, The Marriage of Figaro, Salome, Aida, Adriana Lecouvreur, Les Troyens and Andrea Chénier. LA Opera presented his production of Idomeneo, for which he also designed costumes, in 2004.

He was born in Glasgow and trained at the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama as an actor, designer and director. Productions include Roberto Devereux, Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci, Giulio Cesare, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Il Trovatore (Metropolitan Opera), Les Troyens (La Scala), Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Australia), La Clemenza di Tito (Aix-en-Provence Festival), Don Carlo (Tokyo), Tristan und Isolde (Tokyo and Vienna), Falstaff (Vienna), The Turn of the Screw, Medea, Alcina and Tosca (English National Opera), The Abduction from the Seraglio, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival), The Rake’s Progress, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata and Idomeneo (Scottish Opera), Don Giovanni and Il Re Pastore (Opera North), Wozzeck, Billy Budd and Giulio Cesare (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Semele (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), The Turn of The Screw and Macbeth (Mariinsky), Agrippina (Barcelona, La Monnaie, Brussels, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Frankfurt), Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera, Opera North and ENO), Così fan tutte (Strasbourg and Scottish Opera), The Tales of Hoffmann (Salzburg Festival) and the Ring cycle(Strasbourg).

His awards include the 2011 Grand Prix de la Musique du Syndicat de la Critique. In 2012 he received a knighthood and was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres.