Agathe Mélinand Dramatist

Biography

Trained at the Maîtrise de Radio France, Agathe Mélinand works for the cinema, press and classical music. Deputy director of the Cargo / Centre Dramatique National des Alpes in Grenoble, she became co-director with Laurent Pelly of the Théâtre National de Toulouse. Her numerous productions include new translations of Goldoni play The Liar, The Birds by Aristophanes, Gozzi’s The Green Bird. She wrote Cami, la vie drôle ! and Les Aventures de Sinbad le Marin. She has staged Les Mensonges by Zygel, wrote and stage Monsieur le 6, based on the Marquis de Sade, translated and staged Tennessee Williams - Short Stories, Satie - Memoirs of an Amnesiac. In 2017, she directed an adaptation of Marcel Proust, Enfance et Adolescence by Jean Santeuil.

In 2021, she translated Chase’s Harvey for its French premiere, directed by Laurent Pelly. She has adapted fourteen operas by Offenbach for Pelly, including La Belle Hélène, The Grand Duchess of Gérolstein, The Tales of Hoffmann, La Vie parisienne, King Carrot, Bluebeard, The Trip to the Moon, and La Périchole. She wrote new dialogues for La Fille du régiment and a new adaptation of L’Étoile and Roi malgré lui, Béatrice et Bénédict and Lakmé.

In 2019, she also wrote additional texts for Richard Jones' production of The Damnation of Faust at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 2020, she wrote and directed The Little Book of Anna Magdalena Bach, revived at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in 2023. She adapted the libretto and dialogues for Die Fledermaus and translated and adapted Goldoni’s L'impresario delle Smirne, both staged by Laurent Pelly during the 2023/24 season. Agathe Mélinand collaborates with the French newspaper ‘Monde diplomatique’.