Mellika Melouani Melani was artistic director at Folkoperan in Stockholm 2011-2020. Today she is a freelance director in theaters and opera houses. After completing her acting education at the Theater and Opera Academy in Gothenburg, she was active as an actress for almost ten years, towards the end of the period increasingly as director. She has worked in a conceptual performance tradition based on professional actors and ordinary people who participate in ”the trials", as she calls the concept. In 2011, she received the Swedish Theater Critics' Award for Carmen, Babel and Arabiska Mäns Mobbade Kroppar (Arab Men's Bullying Bodies). Her leadership at Folkoperan was characterized by a vision of 'fearless opera'. Ordinary people took their place on stage in "concert concepts", ie concepts for choral and orchestral works. Her innovative performance of Carmina Burana, based on 80-year-old ladies' life stories, went for sold-out houses for three years. In recent years, attention has been drawn to her interpretations of the The Masked Ball, La traviata and at Gothenburg City Theater Kristina Lugn’s Idlaflickorna (The Girls from Idla). At Folkoperan she also directed Amforta by Jonas Forssell, Mozart's Requiem, Turandot, Haydn’s Creation and The Threepenny Opera. Most recently, she directed Karolina Eiriksdottir's newly written opera Bly at Piteå Kammaropera. In 2024, Luft av Line Tjornhoj awaits at the Royal Danish Opera.
Mellika Melouani Melani
Director
