Japanese-born director Yoshi Oïda earned a master’s degree in philosophy at Keio University in Tokyo before turning to acting and traditional Noh theater.
In 1968 he was invited to the International Centre for Theatrical Research/Bouffes du Nord in Paris by director Peter Brook, where he worked on a number of Brook’s famous productions, including La Conference des Oiseaux (1973) and Mahabharata (1985), before striking out on his own in 1975.
His film projects include the screen adaptation of Mahabharata and Peter Greenway’s The Pillow Book (1996). He has also written books about acting.
In the late 1990s Oida turned his attention to opera, first directing Britten’s Curlew River at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, followed by Stravinsky’s Nightingale in Rouen; Verdi’s Nabucco at the Teatro Communale in Bologna; Schubert’s Winterreise in Potsdam, Berlin and Mexico; Haydn’s Il mondo della luna in Rennes, Nantes, Angers and Luxembourg; and Mozart’s Idomeneo at the National Theater in Prague in 2010. In 2012 he directed Britten’s Death in Venice and Jerome Combier’s Terre et Cendres at the Opéra National de Lyon, and Bizet’s Le pêcheurs de perles at the Opéra Comique in Paris. He has also directed Philippe Manoury’s La Nuit de Gutenberg at the Opéra du Rhin.
In 2019: Oida directed the world premiere of Akira Nishimura’s opera Shion – Monogatari at the New National Theatre in Tokyo.