British lighting designer James Farncombe made his Royal Opera debut in 2013 on How the Whale Became, directed by Natalie Abrahami. He returns in the 2017/18 Season for Lessons in Love and Violence, directed by Katie Mitchell.

Farncombe designs lighting for opera, theatre and ballet. His many credits with Mitchell include Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court), The Maids (Toneelgroep Amsterdam), Pelléas et Mélisande, Trauernacht, The House Taken Over and Alcina (Aix-en-Provence Festival), The Cherry Orchard (Young Vic), The Way Back Home (English National Opera), The Rest Will be Familiar to You from Cinema (Hamburg Schauspielhaus) and Le Vin herbé (Berlin State Opera). He has designed lighting for many productions for the National Theatre (including Twelfth Night for Simon Godwin, Macbeth for Rufus Norris and Three Winters for Howard Davies), the Donmar Warehouse (including Henry IV for Phyllida Lloyd and Fathers and Sons for Lyndsey Turner), the Young Vic (including Yerma for Simon Stone and Measure for Measure for Joe Hill-Gibbins), the Royal Shakespeare Company (including As You Like It and The White Devil for Maria Aberg) and the Royal Court, Lyric Hammersmith, Hampstead Theatre, Old Vic, in the West End and across the UK.

Farncombe’s other opera and ballet credits include Il barbiere di Siviglia (Glyndebourne Festival), Tabachnik’s Benjamin, dernière nuit (Opéra de Lyon), Ariodante and Der fliegende Holländer (Scottish Opera), The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North), Pelléas et Mélisande (Norwegian National Opera), Liam Scarlett’s Carmen and The Firebird and Kaloyan Boyadjiev’s The Nutcracker (Norwegian National Ballet) and Life for BalletBoyz.

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