about

kenza karin koutchoukali
stage director of opera and music theatre

Kenza was ten years old when she sang in the children’s choir in Puccini’s Tosca at Dutch National Opera: a mind boggling experience opening her eyes to the world of the stage. During her studies at the school of arts in Utrecht, she ended up at DNO again, as she was asked by the education department for an adaptation of Britten’s Billy Budd, for and in collaboration with youngsters. 

Afterwards Kenza started as a freelance director and directed Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Café Theater Festival and All Rise! by composer Jan-Peter de Graaff. She followed a two-year talent trajectory at Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and Paris, where she had the opportunity to assist Claus Guth, Lotte de Beer and Romeo Castellucci. 

After directing This is (not) a fairy tale (Lemereis) at Kameroperahuis and online series Bonsai Garden (De Graaff) for Opera Zuid she directed the family production Goud! (Evers), co-produced by Opera Zuid and Dutch National Opera. Last November she made her debut on the main stage of Dutch National Opera with How Anansi freed the stories of the World (Muyanga).

Rooted in both the Western and Andalusian world of music, in her work Kenza aims to find the Fantastic dimension of reality: a phrase she wished she had come up with herself, but found in a book of photographer Jean-Claude Gautrand.