Tom Goossens

Tom Goossens began studying drama at KASK in Ghent, Belgium, in 2012. From the third year of his bachelor’s degree, he focused on opera directing. Alongside his own work, he assisted opera director Guy Joosten at the International Opera Academy (IOA) in 2016 and 2017.

Goossens completed a residency at Translab, the young makers’ lab within Muziektheater Transparant. Under Translab and his own company, DESCHONECOMPANIE (DSC), he created Così and Le Nozze, which together with his graduation performance Don Juan form the DEDAPONTETRILOGIE: three adaptations of Mozart's operas with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. In this cycle, the three performances were programmed at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (OBV), De Munt, Operadagen Rotterdam, and Teater Aan Zee.

In early 2019, Goossens created his first children's show, Banket! Of De wraak op de Macbeths for OBV. In 2019, he was artist in residence at OBV. After a semi-staged direction of Der Jasager and Ravel's one-act L'Heure Espagnole with Youth Orchestra Flanders, he made his opera debut in 2023 with Le Nozze di Figaro.

With DSC, he created two further opera adaptations: Rigoletto and De Barbier; and in the summer of 2023, with Muziektheater Transparant, he created a radical adaptation of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus: Fledermaus Forever. At OBV, he then took care of the semi-staged direction and adaptation of the original operetta, Die Fledermaus.

In the 2023-2024 season, he directed his first opera for both hearing and deaf audiences, Portici, at Silence Radio, made an adaptation of Handel's opera Giulio Cesare at IOA and created his first toddler’s opera, Jupi, based on Handel's Semele at DSC. At Theatre Malpertuis, he translated his first full theatre text, Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw.

As an actor, Goossens appeared in his own production of Rigoletto.

Alongside his theatrical work, Goossens also teaches Musical Theatre in the classical singing department of the Conservatory of Music in Ghent.

Photo: Marcel Lennartz