Stefanos Lazaridis

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Stefanos Lazaridis (28 July 1942 – 8 May 2010) was a British stage designer best known for his work in opera. He was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, to a Greek businessman and was educated in Addis Ababa and Geneva. In 1962 he moved to London to study business, but switched to theatre design, training at Byam Shaw and the Central School of Speech and Drama. Apprenticed to designer Nicholas Georgiadis, he worked on his first theatre production in 1967.

Early in his career his work was lavish and naturalistic, created for directors such as John Copley. He designed Carmen for Sadler’s Wells Opera (1970) and later productions for the English National Opera and Covent Garden, including The Seraglio (1971), Le nozze di Figaro (1971) and Don Giovanni (1973). In the 1980s he collaborated with David Pountney at ENO and began shifting toward a more non-naturalistic style. He also directed operas on occasion and, for a short time, led the Greek National Opera (2006–07). He designed more than 30 ENO productions, with notable titles like Rusalka, Hansel and Gretel, Dr Faustus and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

In addition to opera, Lazaridis worked on plays and theatre shows, including a production about the Mitford sisters and works by Ibsen and Shakespeare. He directed and designed the 1993 U.S. tour of Duran Duran. He contributed to the Covent Garden Ring cycle (2004–06). A 2007 interview for the British Library traces his career. Lazaridis died of cancer in 2010, aged 67, and was survived by his partner of 47 years, Tim Williams.