JUANA INÉS CANO RESTREPO
OPERA DIRECTOR
WELCOME
Juana Inés Cano Restrepo (b. 1991) is an Austrian-Colombian opera director based in Lyon. Shaped by her bicultural heritage and collaborations within major international opera houses and festivals, she has developed a distinctive artistic language since her debut in 2016. Her productions unite the poetic imagery of South American Magic Realism with the analytical precision of European Regietheater. Through symbolically charged stage worlds, finely articulated psychological concepts and a profound attention to musical structure, she uncovers the contemporary feminist and political resonances of operatic works, affirming their enduring emotional and social relevance.
Her repertoire ranges from baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary opera, including Il segreto di Susanna, La Voix humaine, Candide, La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista, Der Freischütz, Carmen, La Bohème, Rigoletto, Die Bajadere and Don Giovanni.
Highlights include María de Buenos Aires at Theater an der Wien (2024), Manfred Trojahn’s Eurydice – Die Liebenden, blind (2025), Madama Butterfly at Staatstheater Regensburg (2025), and Der fliegende Holländer at Theater Chemnitz (2026). Internationally, she directed La Damnation de Faust in Liepāja, Latvia, and made her French debut with Martinů’s La Passion Grecque at Festival Pulsations in Bordeaux under musical direction of Raphaël Pichon (2025).
In the summer of 2026 she is one of the 17 artists selected by the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence to participate in Katie Mitchell’s Woman Opera Makers Workshop. Upcoming projects will lead to her debut at Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen and back to Staatstheater Regensburg with Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
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Portfolio
reviews
„(…) Juana Inés Cano Restrepo takes a critical look at the material. There is hardly any mention of love here. The focus is on sacrifice, redemption and the constraints of two worlds – the bourgeois world on land and the male-dominated world at sea. Much is deliberately left open, making use of symbols and allusions. This makes the performance gripping and open to multiple interpretations. The result is a production that is likely to offer new insights even on a second viewing: musically powerful, intellectually stimulating and emotionally gripping. A production that engages with Wagner’s questionable motifs without succumbing to them. »
Sarah Hofmann, Freie Presse on *The Flying Dutchman*, Theater Chemnitz
„ (…) the evening is undoubtedly one of those rare occasions on which musical theatre both embodies and, at the same time, resolves all its contradictions: it is grand opera and a refined chamber play; it follows Puccini to the letter, yet sheds new light on him through contemporary discourse; it looks splendid and remains uncompromising; it is poetic and brutal, clear and yet open to interpretation.”
Michael Stallknecht, Oper!Magazin on ‘Madama Butterfly’, Staatstheater Regensburg
“(…) the Hall 47, a disused warehouse of monumental proportions (200 metres long!), becomes a melting pot of immersive drama, thanks to the direction and set design by the Austrian Juana Inés Cano Restrepo, who masterfully stages this space: A stage covered in earth evokes the refugees’ search for their roots, whilst suspended bells (religious and communal symbols) provide the soundscape (…) Alongside this poignant set design, Cano Restrepo distinguishes herself through a minimalist and striking production, (…) Shocking images often punctuate the performance: The final, ritualised moment – or Katerina’s liberation bathed in an ethereal light – is etched onto the retina with its symbolic power. (…)”
Emmanuel Andrieu, ClassiqueNews on “La Passion Grecque”, Festival Pulsations