The Stage

Julian Hope

Published Tuesday 24 November 2009 at 11:07 by Michael Quinn

Julian Hope was always circumspect about being the second Baron Glendevon, the son of a Tory MP, and manager of the estate of his grandfather, Somerset Maugham. He preferred, instead, to define himself by the success of his chosen career in opera and theatre.

Born on March 6, 1950, to Lord John Hope, an enthusiastic amateur actor, he counted a future prime minister (Anthony Eden) and Daily Telegraph editor (Michael Berry) among his godparents. At school he played Cassius in Julius Caesar and demonstrated an early obsession with Shakespeare at Eton. At Christ Church, Oxford, his passion for opera found him directing The Marriage of Figaro and Stephen Oliver’s first opera The Duchess of Malfi, both with fellow student Jane Glover conducting.

On graduating in 1973, he joined the Welsh National Opera and began working with Glyndebourne two years later. An in-demand career saw him producing widely in the UK, United States and Europe and directing a hugely successful revival of The Rocky Horror Show. A music co-ordinator for films, latterly, Hope was instrumental in getting three award-winning film adaptations and a BBC mini-series of his grandfather’s work made. In 2008 he wrote and directed for a private audience a stage play, Moika, based on the last day of Pushkin’s life.

He died from cancer, aged 59, on September 29 and is survived by his brother, the art historian Jonathan Hope.