He was an opera and theater director, educated at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and at the University of Glasgow. He had a long association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In Europe he was best-known for a series of American musical-theater works presented at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, including the French premiere of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, as well as Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, The King and I, and Kiss Me, Kate. He also worked in North America; his main professional activity was at Santa Fe Opera.