Alain Maratrat was born in Paris into a family far from the world of art; his father was a train conductor and his mother had stopped working as a dressmaker to raise her children.
He has performed in films by directors Claude Berri, Amos Gitai, Michel Deville and Alain Berberian[4] and plays directed by Bruno Bayen, Philippe Mantha, Gabriel Garran, Peter Brook, Dominique Mühler, Bernard Sobel and Gaston Jung.
In 1992 he created the original opera Zarzuela, Historia de un Patio,[13] followed by Saleri's Falstaff, conducted by Jean-Claude Malgoire (1996),[14] and Kodály's Harry Janos (1998), for which he also adapted the libretto.
[15] With Gergiev's blessing, Maratrat immediately began In depth work with the Mariinsky's Academy of Young Singers, who would be performing, and his creative team Pierre-Alain Bertola, (set design), Mireille Dessingy (costumes), and Pascal Mérat (lighting).
[16] Maratrat's relationship with the Mariinsky Theater continued with a new version of The Love for Three Oranges in 2007 and a 360 degree staging of Mozart’ s Magic Flute (2008), which has been performed more than 150 times at the world-famous opera house.
In 1984 Brook sent him to India to study Kalarippayatt and Kathakali and to Taiwan and Hong Kong to learn Chinese martial arts and weaponry (trident, lances, swords, iron balls) in preparation for the company's epic production of the Mahabharata.
He has taken work workshops with the Peking Opera (acrobatics and fire juggling), as well as Sumatran dance, Balinese Mask, and Javanese puppet masters.