Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier

The two directors began their collaboration in 1983 at the Opéra National de Lyon with the opera A Midsummer Night's Dream which is also the work of a duo: Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears jointly adapted Shakespeare's play and wrote the libretto; Britten composed and conducted; and Pears created the comic role of Flute/Thisbe, and later sang Lysander.

[1] For a long time the Belgian-French director duo worked exclusively in France and the French part of Switzerland with occasional productions at the Spoleto Festival USA in South Carolina and at the Welsh National Opera.

Leiser/Caurier attempt to bring even subject matter that seems remote from the present day to modern audiences by using contemporary expressions and mannerisms.

On one hand, there are their settings of comic opera, which show no fear of slapstick and visual effects, and can actually transform banal plots into coherent narratives.

On the other hand, they compress the unfolding of tragic events, for example, by shifting Der Ring des Nibelungen to postwar Germany, or Norma to Benito Mussolini-era Italy.