ABOUT Polly

Polly read English at Trinity College, Dublin, before completing a MA in Text and Performance at RADA.

She was supported by the Genesis Foundation to go and work at WNO, mentored by Sir David Pountney. There she assisted Pountney and other directors including Pierre Audi, Marius Trelinski, Alessandro Talevi and Martin Constantine.

She was awarded the 2016 Independent Opera Director Fellowship and was nominated as Best Newcomer at the International Opera Awards in 2017. Le Vin Herbé was nominated for a UK Theatre Award in 2017. Polly was revival director for Mosè in Egitto (Teatro San Carlo) and Usher House (San Francisco Opera).

Notable directing projects include Peter Maxwell Davies’ Kommilitonen! & Frank Martin’s Le Vin Herbé (WNO), A Christmas Carol (Trento), Simplicius Simplicissimus (Independent Opera at Sadlers Wells), Der Zaubertrank (St Gallen), Dido & Aeneas (Blackheath Halls Community Opera), The Emperor of Atlantis (Bold Tendencies), Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando (Wiener Staatsoper), Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (Longborough), Il Piccolo Principe (Teatro la Scala), Così fan Tutte (Irish National Opera), The Silly Little Mouse (Bold Tendencies), The Fairy Queen (Longborough) & The Rake’s Progress (ETO).

Previous directing credits include:

Previous directing work

  • The Fairy Queen (Longborough)

  • Così fan Tutte (Irish National Opera)

  • the world premiere of Pierangelo Valtinoni’s Il Piccolo Principe (La Scala, Milan)

  • Triple Bill (Royal Academy of Music, including the world premiere of Freya Wayley Cohen’s WITCH)

  • Die Zauberflöte (Royal College of Music & OPERA VISION)

  • the world premiere of Orlando Gough’s community opera Bloom Britannia (Barefoot Opera)

  • Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (Longborough)

  • the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando (Wiener Staatsoper)

  • The Gondoliers (RWCMD)

  • The Emperor of Atlantis (Loud Crowd/ Bold Tendencies)

  • Der Zaubertrank (Theater St Gallen)

  • Dido & Aeneas (Blackheath Halls Community Opera)

  • Le Vin Herbé (Welsh National Opera)

  • A Christmas Carol (Orchestra Haydn Opera 20.21)

  • Simplicius Simplicissimus (Independent Opera)

  • Kommilitonen! (WELSH NATIONAL OPERA)

  • Unheard Voices: CREW (Welsh National Opera)

  • Nighthawks for New Earth Theatre


Associate directing credits include:

  • Mosè in Egitto (San Carlo, Naples)

  • Usher House & La Chute de la Maison Usher (San Francisco Opera)

“Hartmann’s work has its flaws… but in the hands of Independent Opera and the outstanding Polly Graham (I can’t remember the last time I felt so excited about a young director), these hardly seem to matter.”

The Independent