Famed director Pierre Audi has died at the age of 67.

Born in Beirut, Audi went on to study at Oxford and founded the Almeida Theatre in London in 1979, as well as its International Festival of Contemporary Music, which he directed until 1989.

In 1988, he was appointed the Artistic Director of Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam where he would remain until 2018. There, he he created the majority of his stage productions and worked with visual artists such as Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor and Jonathan Meese.

Regarding his passing the Dutch National Opera said, “With the passing of Audi, the opera world has lost an absolute icon, who has worked tirelessly and with great dedication for the art form. He was an enormous force in the arts, as artistic director, curator and, of course, as a stage director. He leaves a lasting mark on the Dutch opera, music and theatre world.”

As artistic director, Audi commissioned contemporary composers such as Alfred Schnittke, Manfred Trojahn, György Kurtág and Louis Andriessen and also worked with important directors such as Peter Sellars and Simon McBurney. In 2016, he initiated the annual Opera Forward Festival for the 50th anniversary of the Dutch National Opera.

As a stage director, Audi celebrated great success at Dutch National Opera and beyond with, among other things, his Monteverdi cycle, Stockhausen’s Aus LICHT, and Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. After his departure as director, he continued to work with the company helming such productions as “Fin de Partie,” “Aus LICHT,” and “Eurydice – Die Liebenden, blind.” In February 2026, his production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” will return to Dutch National Opera & Ballet.

Outside of his work with the Dutch National Opera, Audi also directed at the Bavarian State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Drottningholms Slottsteater, Opéra national de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien, La Monnaie, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Real, English National Opera, and the Teatro alla Scala, among many others.

From 2004 to 2014, Audi was the artistic director of the Holland Festival, and in 2018, he took over as general director of the Festival d’Aix-en- Provence. Since 2015, he had been Artistic Director of the Park Avenue Armory in New York.

Throughout his career, he went on to receive numerous awards and honors including the Leslie Boosey Award, a Dutch Theatre Critics Award, a prize from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, a Silver Medal from the City of Amsterdam, the Medal of Honor (Drottningholm, Sweden), the first Johannes Vermeer Award, and the Gold Medal of Honour for Art and Science of the House of Orange-Nassau. Audi was also a Knight of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands, Chevalier de l’ordre de la Légion d’honneur and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.