As assistant director and staff director she has worked for many opera companies: ROH, ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO, Glyndebourne, BayerischesStaatsoper Munich, Opernhaus Zurich, and the Kammeroper Vienna.

Elaine’s work has taken her all over the world reviving old and directing new opera productions. As well as her freelance work, she is currently a full-time staff director for ENO.

She has enjoyed a long association with Psappha, the Manchester-based contemporary music group, where she has directed The Soldier’s Tale, two music theatre pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies (VesaliiIcones, premiering in Buenos Aires, and The Lighthouse which celebrated his 75th birthday at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney), Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Arias and Barcarolles, and recently the world premiere of Sally Beamish’s The Sins.

Notable engagements elsewhere: Choreography – La fedeltapremiata (Garsington), The Jacobin (Scottish Opera), The Greek Passion (ROH), Benvenuto Cellini (Zurich Opernhaus) and Pelléas et Mélisande (Mariinsky, St Petersburg). Director/Choreographer – Eugene Ongein and La traviata for Riverside Opera, Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice for Blackheath Halls, and Into the Woods for the final year Theatre Studies students at Northumbria University.