Eleanor Burke
Artistic Director
Eleanor is a London-based director and choreographer a Junior Artists Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A trained ballet and contemporary dancer, Eleanor is also studying stage combat to expand her work to include fight and intimacy choreography. Eleanor wrote and directed Green Opera’s inaugural production, Fillu and their première of Karolina Csàthy’s Gesualdo. Eleanor read English at Trinity College, Cambridge where she was a choral and academic scholar and directed Bizet’s Carmen; Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti; Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado; Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne/Der Schauspieldirektor. Eleanor has directed Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Opera Kensington); and was due to direct Poulenc’s La voix humaine (Raikes Consort/Green Opera) and be the Movement Director for Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti/Castaway (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) prior to Covid-19. Eleanor has also worked professionally as an Assistant Director. She assisted on and observed several productions as part of the Arcola’s Grimeborn Festival 2019 including Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha and Julia Burbach’s staging of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. She has also assisted Stuart Barker on Rossini’s La Cenerentola (British Youth Opera); Daisy Evans on Puccini’s La Bohème (Hampstead Garden Opera); James Hurley on his production of Massenet’s Chérubin (Royal Academy Opera); and, most recently, Julia Mintzer on Holst’s Savitri (Hampstead Garden Opera). Upcoming projects include directing the Isolated Incidents (Green Opera Online) and the world-premiere of Edward Lambert’s The Duchess of Padua (The Cockpit Theatre).
Lizzie Thomas
Producer
Lizzie read Modern Languages at UCL, graduating with a First in French in 2019. Prior to going to university, Lizzie attended the Royal College of Music Junior Department. Whilst there she won the national Catherine Lambert recital Prize and, on leaving, the Concordia Foundation Singing Prize. Throughout her time at university Lizzie was Press Officer for the semi-professional UCOpera company and sang in their productions of La Favorite (Donizetti) and Aroldo (Verdi). In 2019, she was the Producer for UCO’s British staged premiėre of Smetana’s Libuše at the Bloomsbury Theatre and in her final year was one of four UCL students nominated for the university’s ‘Best Contribution to the Arts’ Prize. After graduating, Lizzie was Assistant Producer for Spectra Ensemble’s Treemonisha at the Grimeborn Opera Festival. Lizzie’s day job is in marketing but she’s delighted to have the opportunity to continue her involvement in the Arts through the work she does with Green Opera.
Jonathan Whiting
Composer-In-Residence
Jonathan is a freelance award-winning composer who specialises in vocal and theatrical music. He graduated from King’s College London with a First Class degree in Music where he was taught composition under Dr Edward Nesbitt. As an academic, he specialised in musical theatre, particularly the analytical approach to the music of Stephen Sondheim. Currently Jonathan is studying for a Masters in Composition at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Jonathan has received commissions and performances from the Modern Music Society of King’s College London and Guy’s Chapel Choir and has two publications with Queen’s Temple Publications. He also works as editor and typesetter for world-renowned musical pedagogue and composer, Paul Harris, and assists in the running of the annual International Malcolm Arnold Festival. Upcoming projects include the premiere of his operatic scene, ‘The Porter’ as part of Green Opera’s Isolated Incidents project and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Cambridge Footlights).
Nina Vinther
Environmental Officer
Nina is a First Class Modern and Medieval Languages Graduate of Cambridge University. She studied French, German, Dutch, Polish and Danish alongside lots of singing, from jazz, to lieder, to musical theatre, to Trinity College Choir. In her final year she worked with various students, academics and staff on environmental questions from divestment to subsidised rail travel. Besides her love of performance, Nina is passionate about outreach and education and never takes music for granted – she believes that musicians should be stewards of the human habitat and the arts alike. Music has huge potential to connect people to their emotion, to communicate truths not easily communicated, and to build communities in times of crisis. She is determined that our conversations about “eco-friendliness” shouldn’t be a gimmick; they must be formalised and sustainable change organisationally implemented.